The Chain of Change
by phylanix
Summary: AU Naruto is called back to his village by the Yondaime, but relations between them are frigid. Yet father and son will have to learn to get along if Konoha is to survive the next great war. Features semi-super! Naruto. No foreseeable pairings.
1. Chapter 1

disclaimer: i don't own any part of naruto

**The Chain of Change**

_Chapter One_

* * *

Naruto woke up when someone entered his room.

The height of the too-bright sun that peeked through the window shades indicated mid-afternoon. He felt like someone had run him over with a truck.

"Namikaze Naruto."

The voice was cool and precise. Naruto recognized it, but didn't say anything. He moved a little and frowned as his elbow came into contact with another body, warm and curvy and still asleep.

"Fuck," he muttered. Apparently last night had gotten a little out of hand. He didn't even remember when he'd acquired the bedmate.

"Namikaze Naruto, I am here to escort you back to your village."

His visitor might as well have been talking to a wall. Naruto had no desire to be awake. He turned over on his stomach and mashed his pillow over his head in an attempt to block out all auditory and visual stimuli.

"I have been instructed to use force if you do not comply," his visitor continued, with infuriating calmness.

One bleary eye regarded the wolf-masked ANBU from underneath the pillow. "I'm not going anywhere. Tell that bastard that he can go to hell," came the eloquent reply.

If Naruto was baiting the Konoha-nin, then it seemed to do the trick. Wolf ripped the pillow from Naruto and snarled, "'That bastard' is your father and the finest hokage Konoha has ever seen!" One hand rose in preparation to deliver a heavy cuff.

The blow never landed. Suddenly Naruto was sitting upright, his hand capturing the ANBU's wrist in a powerful grip. For a minute, the room was silent, save for the sound of Wolf's heavy breathing. Then Naruto said, slowly,

"Get out of my apartment."

His voice was quiet, but his eyes had become very, very cold. There was suddenly something terrifying about him, a feeling of dangerousness that could hardly have been attributed to the blond at first glance. As if there were something that stood behind him, some door that had been opened to reveal an ancient rage, terrible and patient.

To his credit, the ANBU refused to be cowed.

"Hokage-sama has ordered for you to be declared a missing-nin unless you return with me to Konoha. Today."

There was a creaking of bones as the grip on his wrist tightened, painfully.

"You're bluffing."

Underneath his mask, the ANBU wore a small smile of satisfaction. "Then kill me and find out."

Naruto let go. All of the strength seemed to seep out of him as he collapsed onto his bed. The girl sleeping next to him stirred, moving the sheets to expose just enough to make the ANBU look away. Seeing this made Naruto smile wickedly.

"She's not bad, if you want a go, Wolf-san." To be honest, he didn't know how she was at all. Last night was lost in a haze of booze and drugs. He was only saying it to get a rise out of the masked nin.

"Get up." The disgust in the ANBU's voice made Naruto's smile widen.

"All right, you got me, I'm going."

Wolf waited impatiently as Naruto stretched prodigiously and padded into the bathroom to shower, as if this were any other morning – or afternoon. The ANBU had little idea why the Hokage was recalling this delinquent now. If it had been up to Wolf, the cocky little bastard could go on wasting his life to his heart's content, wallowing in every cesspool known to the elemental nations until he either ended up a homeless addict or died of an overdose. But blood ran deep – even bad blood. Wolf knew that better than anyone.

Naruto's apartment had all the markings of a temporary home. There was no sign than an attempt had been made to make the place more habitable. The blond had never really unpacked, his clothes lying in a pile over a black duffle bag. The kitchenette was devoid of any dishware or cutlery, although it boasted an excess of empty bowl ramen containers. Even the bed was barely more than a metal frame with a mattress, although the blond had apparently sprung for some nice sheets, being the hedonist that he was.

Speaking of hedonism. There was an empty handle of liquor on the ground next to the bed, and another lying half-empty alongside it. There were also a few crumpled squares of white paper next to them. Wolf had no illusions about what they had once contained. He supposed that he should make some attempt to rouse the girl and send her home before she woke up on her own to an abandoned apartment. But the sight of her only made him angry. She, along with the refuse that littered the floor, was the symbol of Naruto's wasted life, of his reprehensible choices and his disgusting excess.

Many a time the Hokage had broken down in front of his most trusted ninja, both in fury and in desperation. No one had any idea where Naruto went wrong. He had been a happy child, polite and morally upright, until one day, when he just suddenly… wasn't. It had been such a drastic change that the Hokage had suspected genjutsu, ordering Itachi, the scion of Konoha's infamous Uchiha clan, to personally take a look at the boy. Itachi had reported no externally-derived abnormalities, but he had looked troubled after talking to Naruto – a rarity for the normally stoic ANBU. Then again, the next week Itachi had massacred most of his clan, so there was no telling what had been going on in the man's head.

There was an abrupt sound as Naruto shut off the shower. A few minutes later, he stepped out of the bathroom, toweling off his hair and wearing only a pair of boxers. Sensing the frown underneath Wolf's mask, he smirked and said, "Like what you see?"

"Pack," the ANBU barked. "And do something about your guest."

* * *

Naruto tapped a cigarette out of its pack as he idly watched Wolf's exchange with the guard. After less than a minute, the guard gave a smart salute and shouted something at another nin stationed a little further down. Then the gates of Konoha opened with a loud groan.

The blond formed a quick succession of seals with his free hand and lit his cigarette with a snap of his fingers. He inhaled deeply, enjoying the subtle changes in Wolf's body language that signaled disapproval.

"Let's go," the ANBU growled. "The hokage wants to see you immediately."

"What a pain," Naruto muttered.

They had covered the distance to Konoha in just about two days. Wolf had set an exhausting pace, but Naruto, much to the ANBU's secret annoyance, had not suffered much from it. Despite everything, the blond was a talented ninja, and his stamina outstripped that of most of his peers, Wolf included.

The two walked to the hokage's tower like civilians. Very few people along the way recognized Naruto, and no one chose to remark on the boy's return; the hokage's son was a touchy subject in Konoha.

"I don't see anyone I know," the blond commented as they made their way through mazelike streets.

"The rest of the Rookie Nine are chuunin now," Wolf said. There was an acidic edge to his voice. "Except for Neji, who made jounin last year. Naturally, they are all kept very busy with missions."

"And poor me, still a lowly genin."

There were a thousand things that Wolf wanted to say in response to that. Instead, he kept silent as they approached the looming tower. The ANBU at the doors let them in without question.

The hokage was behind his desk, signing documents. Time had been kind to Namikaze Minato. The daily stresses of his position had done little to mar the youthfulness of his features. But as he looked up to see the ANBU escort Wolf and his son into his office, the lines on his face seem to deepen, and the shadows under his eyes grew starker, until he seemed to wear the mask of an old man.

Wolf noticed it, and inwardly seethed at the effect Naruto had on his father.

"Hi there," the boy said offhandedly, as if he hadn't been three years missing. "Why did you have Kakashi call me back?" Wolf flinched at the identification, earning another of Naruto's wicked smiles. "You think I'm stupid enough to not recognize the voice of my own jounin-sensei?"

Minato put down his pen and leaned back tiredly. He did not stand up.

"Naruto. It's been a long time."

The smile immediately vanished from his son's face, replaced by an angry glower. "You brought me back here as the hokage," Naruto snapped. "Don't start talking to me as my father."

"All right then," Minato conceded. They had already treaded this ground three years ago, again and again, and each time, fruitlessly. The older blond's voice became cool and impassive, but his expression remained weary. "Naruto, I have ordered your return on behalf of Konoha and the Council. The elemental countries are drawing closer to war, and your skills are needed here."

The boy remained silent, but his anger did not dissipate.

"I am reforming Team Seven under Hatake Kakashi. You will report to him as your commander from today on."

There was a sudden flare of wind-imbued chakra as Naruto exploded.

"Team Seven?! I'd rather be declared a missing-nin and hunted down like an animal than let them fuck with me again!" The air lashed violently around them like a wild storm. It was an impressive display of elemental chakra, but the hokage refused to be fazed.

Stone-faced, Minato said, "Then that can be arranged."

Kakashi looked away. He knew how much the older blond suffered to utter those words. How had it come to this – that a father would need to say such a thing to his only child?

Naruto narrowed his eyes. The wind around them sharpened. Kakashi felt its dangerous pressure against his skin and wondered why the ANBU hadn't come charging into the office yet.

Minato said softly, "I will put you down myself if that is what it comes down to."

At first Kakashi thought Naruto was going to attack his own father, but then the wind chakra let up and the boy slumped in defeat. When he looked back up, there was no acknowledgement of either of their presences in his eyes. It may as well have been the gaze of a dead thing.

Mechanically, Naruto said, "I will report to Hatake-san tomorrow morning. I request permission to be dismissed."

"I am assigning Mouse and Eagle to keep watch over you," the hokage said. "Dismissed."

* * *

"I have no right to call myself a father," Minato said. "Sometimes I wish that the Kyuubi had taken me along with it."

Kakashi couldn't think of anything to say to that, so he said nothing.

"Where did you find him?" The hokage asked, rubbing his forehead tiredly with one hand.

"A small village near Water Country."

"Was he by himself?"

"Yes," Kakashi lied smoothly. "He had his own apartment."

"Did he seem all right to you?" There was a dry twist to the blond's voice.

"For the most part. He didn't seem very happy to be coming back here."

"Kakashi," Minato said suddenly. His expression was somber. "I know my son – and his vices. You don't have to protect me from the truth."

The silver-haired jounin licked his lips uncertainly. Then he pulled up his mask so that he could look his sensei in the eye.

"When I found Naruto, he was in bed with a girl that I don't think he knew. He had been drinking."

"And?"

Kakashi looked away. "Minato-sensei…"

"I want to hear it, Kakashi."

The jounin said slowly, "I think – that he's been using drugs."

Minato sighed, long and drawn-out, the sound of the life departing a dying body.

"What am I going to do? He's in no position to be serving actively, but I've put him in that spot. Fuck, I even threatened to kill him. My own son."

Kakashi began, "The Council –"

"Fuck the Council," Minato snarled, surprising his former student with his viciousness. "If it weren't for the sake of this village, I would happily see those bastards dead." Desperately, he said, "I wish I could step down."

But they both knew that he couldn't. That war was coming to Konoha, plain and simple, and that without the Yellow Flash to lead it, their village would not make it out of the pending conflict on top. And the Land of Fire had far, far more to lose than any of the other elemental countries.

The Fourth was the most talented ninja Konoha had ever produced. But here, in this expansive office with his only surviving student, he was a failure, a man who couldn't put the welfare of his only child before the demands of his job.

* * *

Kakashi arrived at the training grounds to see Naruto idly leaning against the fence, smoking, while his two teammates stood next to each other, some distance away.

The blond looked up as he approached, flicking the ash from his cigarette. "Mornin', commander."

"Kakashi-sensei!"

The jounin winced at the high-pitched voice. Though Hanuro Sakura had matured, the pitch of her voice had not mellowed and it still had a way of grating on his nerves.

"Why is Naruto here?"

It was a valid question, and from the stares his two students were giving him, it was one that they expected an answer to. Kakashi sighed and glanced at the blond in question. "You want to tell them?"

"The hokage recalled me to active duty," Naruto said shortly. "He reformed Team Seven. So here I am."

"Kakashi-sensei." It was the normally taciturn Uchiha Sasuke. "He has defected before. How do we know that we can trust him?"

Naruto favored him with a cold, twisted smile. "The hokage gave me a pretty clear choice – either join up with you guys, or be put down. He even offered to do the deed himself. Pretty considerate of him, considering how busy he is."

Sasuke looked away in disgust. Kakashi felt a sudden throbbing at his temples. It was going to be a long morning.

* * *

**Author's Note**: If you took the time to read this, please let me know how I'm doing. I'm kind of writing this one out of my ass, so if the characters came out all wrong, I apoligize, and can only say that -- in my defense -- it is technically AU.


	2. Chapter 2

disclaimer: i don't own any part of naruto

**The Chain of Change**

_Chapter Two_

_

* * *

_Naruto winced as he applied the cold compress to his face. The sparring exercises that morning had gotten a little out of hand and Sasuke's elbow had left its mark in the form of an ugly purpling under his left eye. Naruto wasn't concerned – the bruise wouldn't even be there the next morning – but in the meantime, it still hurt like hell, and it was a humiliating reminder of how out of shape he was. At least he had gotten the bastard back for it.

The Namikaze estate was as quiet as he remembered. The house was devoid of other people, as Minato chose not to keep servants. Naruto hated it. Even a girlfriend who visited once in a while to break the silence would have been nice, but Minato had seldom dated after his wife's death. Kushina had left an irreplaceable void in his mind, one that he had tried to fill with his duties as the hokage and, less successfully, with raising his son.

Naruto had an entire wing of the main house to himself. When he returned, he'd found his rooms unchanged but coated with dust. A quick application of wind chakra had remedied that, but bitterly he found himself thinking that it was typical of Minato to ignore his absence in the same way that he ignored his presence. He no longer minded being alone. He still minded being lied to.

Kakashi had suggested that they disband early after the particularly brutal morning. Since his father wouldn't be home until well into the evening, that meant Naruto had the entire rest of the day to himself to do fuck-all.

Or would have, if someone hadn't entered the estate grounds.

Long ago, Minato had inscribed a series of seals onto the outer perimeter of their home. Anyone who stepped on them would trigger a pulse of chakra along the walls of the buildings that served as a warning for visitors, of both the friendly and not-so-friendly sort. Naruto stiffened as he felt such a pulse, and waited for a knock at the gate. When there was none, he went out to investigate.

If the intruder was trying to be sneaky, then he failed entirely by neglecting to mask his killing intent. Naruto felt it shiver up his spine and immediately knew that someone was after him. The problem was locating the assassin.

The Namikaze grounds were diligently attended to by a gardener who came by twice a week at the insistence of the Council. It made the village look bad, they argued, if its leader's yard was not absolutely pristine. Minato had found the reasoning stupid, but rather than argue, he took his usual route of deferring to their judgment. As a consequence, the front yard was a perfectly sculpted Japanese garden, and that meant lots of places for a trained killer to hide.

As he scanned the perimeter, Naruto found himself wondering where the two ANBU assigned to him were. There was no love lost between himself and the citizens of Konoha, but he'd thought that at least Konoha-nin would obey the goddamn word of his leader and in the guardianship of his only child. Apparently that had been too much to hope for.

A shower of projectiles suddenly rained out of nowhere, and Naruto found himself cursing as he rolled away. He sent a pulse of wind chakra out to disturb his surroundings, and was rewarded by the brief glimpse of black fabric in a clump of shrubs. Swiftly, he formed a succession of hand seals and sent a more powerful fuuton jutsu in that direction, forcing the assassin to leap away.

His attacker was male, masked, and dressed all in black. Distantly, Naruto found himself thinking that this was a poor choice for a daytime attack, but he didn't have a chance to dwell on the matter as his opponent sent another hail of kunai his way. He managed to avoid most of them, but one sliced him somewhat deeply in the shoulder. Disgusted at how rusty his skills had become, Naruto clamped a hand down on the wound and, after finding it to be not that serious, formed a longer sequence of seals with his free hand.

The katon blast caught his attacker full-on and knocked him back into a tree. Before he could recover, Naruto was upon him, one hand pinning the assassin to the tree trunk by the neck, the other holding a kunai millimeters away from his face.

The blond casually sliced the mask from the man's face, revealing a pale countenance with dark hair and darker eyes. He had on a Konoha hitai-ite, but Naruto did not recognize him.

"So," Naruto said, almost conversationally, "Why are you trying to kill me?"

Graciously, the man spat in his face. Without so much as a flinch, Naruto wiped it off with the back of the hand holding the kunai and, just as impassively, gave the man's neck a little squeeze.

His attacker only became more defiant.

"I was doing my job as a Konoha citizen, culling a monster like you."

"You do know that I'm the son of the hokage, right?"

"The Yondaime is a great leader, but even he erred in marrying that witch!"

Stone-faced, Naruto broke his nose. He ignored the ensuing howls of pain and said, "Before I kill you, I just want to know – did someone send you, or did you act alone?"

The man's pulse stayed steady under his hand as he replied spitefully, "I acted by myself. There are plenty more like me in this village." Catching sight of the blond's expression, he added with a sneer, "But you already know that, don't you?"

Naruto said nothing. He simply began to crush the man's throat. Small gurgling noises made their way out of his attacker's mouth. They were just starting to grow satisfying when the blond felt the presences of two new ninjas arrive behind him.

"Namikaze-san, we request that you hand the assassin to us. For questioning."

It was Mouse who spoke. Naruto felt his expression twist in anger.

"And where the hell were you two when this guy decided to attack me?"

"My apologies, Namikaze-san. He had us entrapped us in a genjutsu." There was neither shame nor apology in the ANBU's tone.

Naruto said darkly, "I am sure that's exactly what happened."

"You do not need to believe us." This time, it was Eagle who spoke, his voice crisp. "Still, we ask that you relinquish the assassin. It is imperative that we uncover his motivations for staging an attack at the hokage's very residence."

Naruto snarled in disgust, but withdrew his hand. "Fuck off then," was all that he said before he went back into the main house.

* * *

"How is he?" Minato asked, his hand paused over the next stack of forms. Unlike his predecessor, he could never get the hang of filling out paperwork and talking at the same time.

"Sloppy," was Kakashi's answer. "His reflexes have dulled. He let Sasuke get in a few hits that never would have landed two years ago. However, his skill with wind chakra has improved. Insanely."

There was a wry smile on the hokage's face as he said, "I think I got a sense of that in person. Has he developed a secondary affinity yet?"

There was a slight hesitation, and then Kakashi said, "Yes, I saw him light a cigarette with a minor katon jutsu."

Minato snorted. "He didn't blast his face off, so that's a good sign of his control, at least." Hearing that his son had added smoking to his list of vices didn't surprise him in the least bit. Really, tobacco was rather low in on the list of the things Naruto could be doing to shorten his life.

"How is the team getting along?"

Kakashi sighed. "They don't trust him, and I can't blame them. You know what they say – once burned, twice shy."

The hokage nodded. "Especially when it comes to my son. Sakura – did he ever –"

"Not that I know of," Kakashi said. "So at least, that's not the problem. The issue is that he left them, just when Team Seven was starting to come together. Naruto was always kind of the keystone of the group. He was helping Sakura get over her self-esteem problems, and I think he was the first real friend Sasuke had after the Uchiha Massacre. They were devastated when he vanished.

"I thought they would see it coming, though. His behavior was becoming more and more erratic, and his mood swings worse and worse. Sakura went home crying a few times because of him, towards the end."

"Of all the people who should have seen it coming, I think I'm probably at the top of that list," the blond said bitterly. "After all the things I caught him doing, all the arguments we had…"

"Minato-sensei—"

"Anyway, can they still work together?"

Kakashi sighed. "Their teamwork is as strong as I remember it being. Only instead of having Naruto watch their backs, Sasuke and Sakura prefer him to act as the diversion. A role he's quite suited for."

"I guess that's the best we can hope for," Minato said, half under his breath. "I'm sending you on a mission to Suna. They've recently appointed a new Kazekage, but because of our relations, we know very little about him. Reconnaissance, high B-rank. Take tomorrow to prepare, then depart immediately."

There was a sudden knock on the door, then one of the ANBU guards poked his head into the office.

"Sorry, sir, Danzo-san is here to see you."

"Let him in," Minato said tiredly, not bothering to dismiss his former pupil. He already knew that Kakashi was silently gone.

The blond wished that he could leave just as easily. He never enjoyed talking with the elders, but for the most part they were simply another of the many undesirable trappings that came with the office. One-on-one sessions with Danzo, however, were an entirely different story. Most high-ranking Konoha-nin knew better than to trust the war hawk. Minato took it one step further: he deeply, deeply despised the man.

Danzo was aware of how the hokage hated him, and worse, the scarred veteran knew exactly why Minato would never be able to act upon that hatred. The amount of tension that built up during their meetings sometimes caused the ANBU to shrink away from the doors in fear.

So Minato simply leaned back with his arms crossed as he watched Danzo enter the office. The Yondaime did not offer him a chair, partially out of petty spite, and partially because he knew Danzo would not take one. The elder did not sit; nor did he stand – he simply loomed over whatever he was addressing. Minato chalked it up as just one more thing he disliked about the man.

"Hokage-sama." Trust Danzo to make an honorific sound like an insult. "I heard that you have recalled your son."

"Yes, I had him brought back yesterday."

"We are worried about his mental state."

"The Council gave the order for his return to duty in the first place. From their decision, I assumed that any concerns over Naruto's condition had been addressed."

Danzo's mouth thinned into a cold line. "Not to everyone's satisfaction."

Minato fought the urge to smile. Normally Danzo was able to bully the Elders into going along with him. Apparently the man didn't appreciate having his opinion overridden.

"If you will excuse my directness, Hokage-sama, but Naruto's past record has shown that he cannot be relied upon. To have put him on the same team as two promising young Konoha-nin will be seen by some as a foolhardy move on your part."

"Kakashi is one of the most talented jounin this village has ever produced, and his students are just as capable," Minato replied dryly. "They have worked together well with Naruto before. I have complete faith in Team Seven's continued ability to excel. Your peers apparently agree with me," he added, enjoying how his words caused Danzo's scarred face to contort slightly. Twisting the knife further, he said, "In recognition of your concerns, I can recommend that he be placed with a therapist. Selected by this office, of course."

It took a few moments for the veteran to school his expression back into its normally impassive mask. "Well, seeing that Hokage-sama has the situation under control, I ask to take my leave," he said finally, making for the door. Just as he was about to leave, he turned back to stare at Minato, unbridled malice in his single eye.

"In any event, I hope that, if circumstances arise for it, you will do what needs to be done for the good of Konoha."

Minato froze at those words. He heard them echo in his head, repeated for every time they had been said to him, every time that he had failed their expectation.

The door closed behind Danzo with a small creak of its hinges.

In an uncharacteristic lapse of self-control, Minato seized one of his signature kunai and hurled it with all his strength. It gouged deeply and satisfyingly into the thick wooden panels, but Minato fervently wished that it had been the man itself. If only it were that easy. He felt the guilt that had become a constant in his life since the Kyuubi attack stir in his belly and forced it back down with a violence borne from fear. Of all the people who could know what he had always suspected since that day, why did it have to be Danzo? Of all the people who could have such a hold over his pride and his shame, why the _fuck_ did it have to be _Danzo_?

* * *

It was Tenten's first time alone at the bar. Usually Neji and Lee would accompany her here after missions to unwind, but tonight Neji was occupied by Hyuuga Clan business and Lee had been immediately tapped upon their return for a task that required a taijutsu expert. Tenten was going to be damned if she stayed home with an empty apartment when everyone else seemed to doing something, so she put on something nice and went out.

She wasn't sure what she'd had in mind. She sat at the bar and finished two cocktails, both delicious and accordingly expensive. She watched the groups of people who came in, sat down, and gleefully lost control of themselves. A few people sat next to her and tried to chat her up, but she wasn't interested and responded appropriately. The bartender gave her a third drink on the house, which she was guilty of nursing a bit.

Meanwhile, someone had once again filled the seat next to her. She observed him from the corner of her eye. It was hard not to look at him, because he stood out: tall, tanned skin, lemon-yellow hair. She didn't hear what he ordered, but the bartender seemed surprised by it. The bartender took out a tall bottle, half-full of a clear, amber-colored spirit and poured a generous amount into a small glass. Then he laid a strange-looking, perforated spoon across the glass' circumference and on top of that placed a single sugar cube. Tenten was both confused and fascinated by this strange preparation. She watched as the bartender took a frosted pitcher of water and dripped it slowly over the sugar cube and into the glass. The liquor in the glass began to pale in color and take on a cloudy appearance.

When the volume in the glass had increased by about a third and the liquid inside was a milky white, the bartender removed the spoon and what was left of the sugar cube and gave the drink a quick stir. Then he handed it to the blond, who took a long sip.

"How is it?" The barkeep asked.

"Really good. Vintage?"

"Belonged to my grandfather, but no one in my family drinks the stuff. It won't put hair on your balls, but maybe it'll bring you some luck what that girl sitting next to you."

Hearing this, Tenten flushed, but then the bartender smiled at her and she remembered that he had at least given her a free drink. In any event, she was feeling too mellowed to take further offense.

The blond smiled at her too and started a conversation. The topic was trivial, but he was funny and engaging. A little crazy. Tenten began to enjoy herself. He had another drink. Then another. Tenten joined in for a round of shots. And then the blond kept going, until she no longer cared to keep track.

The strange thing was, as her companion grew more and more obviously inebriated, his eyes began to take on a disturbing clarity. It was almost as if some other entity were gazing through them and directly at her. Something wiser and much, much older. Tenten found herself looking away more often.

Suddenly, he said, "So how is Gai doing?" and her hand immediately went to the kunai she had hidden at the small of her back, underneath her shirt.

"Do I know you?" She asked cautiously, trying to concentrate through the blur of alcohol.

"I'm hurt, Tenten. It's me, Naruto. From Team Seven?"

"Naru – Naruto! I thought you were away! Why the hell didn't you say something sooner?"

He laughed sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head; a familiar gesture. "Actually, I just realized who you were. You've grown a lot, Tenten."

"Well, in my defense, so have you."

Naruto grinned. "Fuck, Tenten. I was trying to pick you up! Your teammates would fucking cream me if they found out."

Tenten found herself grinning back despite herself. "Who says they have to find out?"

But Naruto wasn't paying attention to her anymore. He was staring at someone else, and there was furious expression on his face. Puzzled by who could have caused such an abrupt change in his mood, Tenten followed his gaze and saw a pale middle-aged man with dark hair and darker eyes, finishing off a pitcher of beer by himself in a corner of the bar. His skin was oddly discolored at his throat, as though it was bruised, but aside from that there was nothing obviously unusual about him that Tenten could see.

Abruptly, Naruto excused himself to pay their tabs. Then he was out the door before she could even say goodbye.

* * *

Kakashi found him on top of the Nidaime's monument.

Naruto noticeably stiffened as the jounin approached. He was sitting cross-legged, smoking a cigarette, and watching the village go about its usual morning routine. His eyes were half-lidded and shadowed. He did not look like he had slept at all.

"You were supposed to meet us an hour and a half ago," Kakashi said.

"I know, I know, get moving or you'll send the hunter-nin out to cull me." Naruto stood up with a small groan, wobbling a little on his feet. Kakashi shot him a sharp glance, but the blond waved it off: "Don't worry, I'm not high anymore. My legs are just stiff." The end of his cigarette flared to life as he took one last, long drag, then crushed it beneath his heel.

For a minute, Kakashi said nothing. Then,

"I've been asked by Umino-san to bring Team Seven to the academy for 'Meet a Ninja Day,' or whatever it is."

Naruto seemed to sense his jounin-sensei's reluctance for introducing someone such as himself to young, developing minds and smiled lop-sidedly in response. "You're probably better off leaving me here then, Kakashi-sensei." For once, there was no rancor in his voice as he addressed his teacher.

Kakashi looked at him, surprised by the change in his tone. Finally, the jounin said, bluntly, "If I have to suffer through show-and-tell with academy brats, I'm going to drag anyone I can find down with me. Especially if it's you."

His wayward student only chuckled in response as the two of them leapt down toward the village.

* * *

**Author's Note**: Fuck, the response to the first chapter was kind of overwhelming. It definitely propelled me to churn this update out faster, although I am afraid that the quality may have suffered from it. I am amazed (and delighted) that so many people enjoyed the first chapter, but now I really hope I don't fuck it up. Looking at the feedback (thank you to everyone who provided it -- it was amazingly helpful), there are a few points I would like to address before anyone gets their hopes up. (1) There is not going to be any pairing. (2) I'm kind of one of those show rather than tell writers, so there will be less on the flashbacks and more on details dropped here and there before some big reveal, if any. (3) All of the major players in canon will be accounted for, eventually.

To answer some reviewers: The Rookie Nine are going to be around 16-17; sorry, no bloodline for the Namikaze family; and don't worry, the fic is "M" because of Naruto's recreational habits, not due to explicit descriptions of his love life.

One last thing. It would be really helpful, if I keep writing at this speed, to have a beta reader. I usually don't have problems with the technical writing aside from typos and lapses in style, but I worry that my plot/characterization is not quite as sound. If anyone is interested, drop me a PM.


	3. Chapter 3

disclaimer: i don't own any part of naruto

**The Chain of Change**

_Chapter Three_

_

* * *

_"Can anyone tell me who the hokage is?"

A hand immediately shot up. It belonged to a girl with straw-colored hair and freckles, wearing an obnoxiously purple jumper. She was leaning so far forward over her desk that the back legs of her chair had lifted off the ground.

Naruto turned and smirked at his teammate, who flushed the same shade as her hair and looked away. The resemblance was obvious.

"Tomoyo-chan?" Iruka said kindly, inviting the girl to answer.

She immediately obliged. Standing up with her hands clasped behind her back, she closed her eyes and recited diligently, "The hokage is the highest-ranking ninja in Konoha. It is his job to lead and protect the village."

"Very good, Tomoyo-chan," Iruka said. The redhead beamed and sat down. "Now, can anyone tell me about the current hokage?"

A dark-haired, pale-eyed boy (doubtlessly the Hyuuga genius of their generation) stood up and answered this time. "The Yondaime is considered the best ninja that Konoha has ever produced. He is famous for his decisive role in the war with Iwa, where he defeated an entire army by himself. He also saved the village from the demon fox Kyuubi by sealing it into an Inari statue. Since then, he has overseen one of the longest stretches of peace in Konoha history."

"That's exactly right, Yosuke-kun," Iruka affirmed. "Now, today I have asked a jounin to bring his team to talk to you all. Class, this is Hatake Kakashi and Team Seven: Hanuro Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke, and Namikaze Naruto."

"Whoa," some said at the back of the classroom, "Is he really the hokage's son?"

Naruto forced himself to smile and said, "That's right, the Yondaime is my father."

The class dissolved into a flurry of excited voices. It took a minute for Iruka to reestablish quiet. Then he said, "Let's ask Kakashi and his team what it's like to be an active Konoha-nin."

There was an awkward silence as each member of Team Kakashi waited for the others to speak first. Finally, the jounin said lamely, "Being a ninja is hard."

Twenty sets of eyes stared blankly at him. Someone in the back began to giggle.

Sakura tried to salvage the situation. "What Kakashi-sensei means is that being a ninja involves a lot of difficult training. But anyone can be a good ninja, as long as they work hard at it."

Again, silence followed. Then, someone shouted, "Show us a cool jutsu!"

Team Seven exchanged nervous glances. Finally, Sasuke formed a brief series of hand seals and blew a (very) small plume of fire out of his mouth. The flames flashed a dazzling cobalt for a brief moment before wisping out of existence. The class immediately broke out into shrieks of delight.

"Does anyone have questions for Team Kakashi?" Iruka asked as soon as the excitement died down, wanting to head off any other demonstrations that could potentially destroy his classroom.

A girl with brown hair tied up in pigtails raised her hand, and Iruka called on her. She stood up, stared accusingly at Naruto, and said,

"My kaa-san told me that you're a very, very bad person. And that your kaa-san was a bad person too! She made the Kyuubi attack!"

Kakashi winced at the childish self-righteousness in her voice and quickly glanced at his most volatile student. Naruto's eyes glittered darkly and his hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists, but thankfully he seemed to be in control of himself. The jounin was just about to suggest that Sasuke show the class his Sharingan to defuse the situation when the classroom door opened and four ANBU stepped inside.

Ignoring the academy students as well as the rest of Team Seven, they quickly surrounded Naruto.

"Namikaze-san, please come with us."

The one who spoke was wearing an eagle mask. Kakashi recognized him as one of the guards Minato had assigned to watch over his son. Mouse was also present, but the other two wore unadorned masks and he didn't know them.

They could not have come at a worse time. Naruto had been angry but unable to act upon it, but now a suitable target had arrived. Already a wicked grin was beginning to form on his face. If he left with the ANBU, there was no telling what he would do.

What a pain, Kakashi thought. Abruptly, he stepped forward and said, "As his immediate superior, I'm coming along too."

His blond student shot him a murderous look, but the jounin shrugged it off. The class watched in complete silence as the ANBU led them away.

* * *

Kakashi had seen plenty of corpses during his tenure as a Konoha-nin. Some of them had been particularly gruesome -- corpses rendered unrecognizable as human by forbidden jutsu, corpses put up on display as a macabre warning to their living companions, corpses left to fester on the forest floor weeks after the life in them had expired. But a corpse placed on a metal slab at the morgue lost much of its context. The jounin had a difficult time reminding himself that what was laid out before them had ever been alive.

It was the body of a dark-haired male. He looked somewhat older than Kakashi, but it was difficult to tell. His neck was ringed with ugly purple bruises, but it was obvious that he did not die by strangulation: the corpse looked like it had been run through a food processor. Every visible portion of skin was riddled with lacerations. Some of the cuts were small, while others manifested as wide, angry slashes. There was no pattern to their dispersal or severity, as if the man had been attacked repeatedly by a blind guy with a machete. Or maybe a master of wind manipulation.

"We found the corpse lying near the hokage's tower earlier this morning," one of the unmarked ANBU said.

"God, what an idiotic place for someone to hide a body," Naruto said caustically. "Are you going to arrest me now, or are we going to stand some more in a room with a dead guy?"

"Would you care to explain why you killed him?"

"I was doing your job for you. Last I thought, attacking the hokage's family was considered an act of treachery and a capital offense. Or did you forget that he tried to kill me yesterday?"

"He was a civilian," Eagle said evenly. "They are not subject to military justice. We had no choice but to release him."

Naruto laughed derisively. "You are all such fucking awful liars."

Before anyone could stop him, the blond tilted the corpse's head up and pried open its jaw to show them a series of thick black markings that started at the back of the tongue and extended down into the dead man's throat. It looked as if a colony of termites had crawled into the man's mouth and taken up residence. Kakashi wondered that, if he were to look at Mouse and Eagle's tongues, he would find the same thing.

If the ANBU were surprised by the curse seal, they did not show it.

"The elders want to see you," Mouse said abruptly. "We shouldn't keep them waiting."

Naruto was led out of the room in disgust. He had no doubt in his mind which elder he was going to be seeing.

* * *

Much to Naruto's surprise, all three elders were present when he was escorted inside the room by the ANBU.

It was a classic interrogation chamber, framed by thick stone walls on three sides and a tinted, one-way window on the fourth. The blond was led to one end of a thick wooden table, opposite Mitokado, Utatane, and Danzo. Mouse and Eagle were there also, each guarding one of the corners by the elders' side.

As Naruto seated himself, Danzo stared the blond with his one good eye, flat and dead like a shark's. His two colleagues, seated on either side of him, maintained impassively blank expressions and looked for all the world like motionless mannequins, waiting for a command from their puppetmaster.

"Well." Naruto, never able to bear complete silence for too long, was the first to speak. "Here I am again."

His offhand demeanor did not amuse anyone.

"Namikaze Naruto," Utatane said sternly, "How long have you been back in Konoha?"

"The day before yesterday."

"And in that time, how many of our laws have you broken?"

Naruto blinked innocently. "None that I'm aware of."

Mitokado Homura snorted. "Try four. Disobeying a direct superior, using a controlled substance, patronizing a prostitute -- not to mention, killing a civilian."

Naruto whistled admiringly, then said venomously to the two ANBU, "Wow, you guys get around! I don't even remember getting with the hooker. Was she any good?"

"Namikaze!" Utatane snapped, her voice tight with anger. "I don't think you understand the seriousness of your situation. Murdering a civilian violates the unspoken agreement we Konoha-nin have with the villagers. They will be demanding your blood for this."

"What else is new," Naruto said dismissively. "If that man was a civilian, then I'm a fucking virgin." He leaned forward and rested his elbows against the table. For lack of anything better to do and to annoy Danzo, he drummed his fingers a little against the table. "Hey, do you mind if I smoke?"

"Keep your filthy habits to yourself," Mitokado immediately growled.

"I simple 'no' would do," The blond retorted peevishly, slouching back in his chair.

"Your father seems to think that having you back on duty will somehow help our chances if war breaks out." This time, it was Danzo who spoke, and his voice contained a not-so-suble undercurrent of malice. "I think that you are a loose cannon, more of a danger and a detriment to Konoha than an asset. Your recent actions have only further confirmed this."

Naruto smiled. It did not reach his eyes. Finally, the man was getting to the point. "Is that why you tried to have me killed?"

Danzo sneered. "You think I am somehow connected to the victim? A mere civilian, with no training in the ninja arts whatsoever?"

"I don't know," the blond replied conversationally. "He seemed to have the curse seal that you're so fond of putting on all of your lackeys."

Before Danzo had a chance to retaliate, a knock sounded at the door. One of the ANBU went and opened it, his body blocking the intruder from sight. Words were exchanged, then the ANBU stepped back from the door to let Nara Shikamaru into the room.

"What's this?" Mitokado said, rising from his seat. "This is a closed meeting. No one else is allowed in here, shinobi or otherwise."

"Sorry sir," Shikamaru said, but his lazy tone made him sound anything but repentant. "The hokage sent me, actually. To deliver Yasu Takashi's files." In the chuunin's hand was a thickly stuffed manilla folder, which he presented to Mitokado. The elder opened it and flipped through the first few pages. Then he frowned and snapped the thing shut.

"Well, that appears to be in order. Namikaze, it's your lucky day. It seems that you have been cleared of the murder charge."

"What?" Danzo thundered, springing up from his own chair with such violence that it toppled to the ground with a loud clatter. Shikamaru edged closer to the door. With so many people suddenly standing, the room began to feel more crowded.

"What is the meaning of this, Homura?"

"It's all here, Danzo," his colleague murmured, handing him the file. "The man Namikaze Naruto killed was actually a ninja. Yasu Takashi, rank: chuunin." Mitokado nudged his glasses further up the bridge of his nose and looked at Danzo directly. "I'm surprised you didn't recognize him. It says that he was assigned under your command two years ago."

To his credit, the one-eyed veteran cooly brushed off Mitokado's subtle accusation. "There's a lot of ninja in my task force -- I don't know them all by sight." Turning to the blond, he said, "Well, this is rather convenient for you, Naruto-kun, wouldn't you say? I'll wager you have your father to thank for this, as usual."

Naruto bristled at the words, but surprisingly, elected not to respond.

"In any event," Danzo continued smoothly, "I think that, in light of his past history and the other three charges that still stand, we should at least require some measure for Naruto's rehabilitation from the hokage."

"Very well," Utatane said, finality in her voice. "ANBU, you may escort Namikaze home, while we formulate his sentencing recommendation."

* * *

Kakashi was waiting for him when Naruto was led out of the interrogation chamber.

"For Kami's sake!" was the first thing the jounin said. "Couldn't you have at least waited until after we returned from Suna to get into this much trouble?"

"Believe it or not, Kakashi-sensei, trouble tends to find me about as frequently as I go looking for it," his blond student responded, grinning wryly. He looked to his side, expecting to see the ANBU, but apparently they had not deemed seeing him safely home a task worth their time. It was only he and Kakashi in the hallway.

"Anyway, I know how the system works. Those old bats can only recommend a sentence. They have no power to enforce it, and they certainly have no way of keeping me from going on this mission." For some bizarre reason, Naruto had been in a particularly good mood ever since he had been informed that they would be leaving for Suna.

"You are aware of who actually has jurisdiction over those two things you mentioned, right?" Kakashi pointed out. "And who got you out of that bind in the first place?"

Naruto's expression darkened.

"He brought me back here so I can do these fucking missions," The blond snarled. "I doubt that he'd lock me up while I'm still useful."

"Naruto, grow up. Hatake-san is right."

The two Konoha-nin turned to face Shikamaru, who had apparently just been dismissed by the elders. Despite the chuunin's blunt words, Naruto's face broke out in a genuine smile.

"Shikamaru! Man, I'm glad you showed up."

"You know who was really responsible," The lazy nin replied laconically. Then he smiled as well. "But it's good to see you back, even if you are troublesome."

Naruto wanted to continue in the vein of disparaging his father's priorities, but he found that somehow his heart wasn't into it. Instead he said, "How is Asuma-sensei doing? Still smoking three packs a day? Damn, now that I mention that, I could really use a smoke," he added under his breath.

"Don't do it here. Smoking's bad for you," Shikamaru said matter-of-factly. "Besides, that crap you exhale stings my eyes. Asuma-sensei is fine. He's waiting for you to go visit him, actually. Keeps saying that you were the most talented idiot he ever trained to use wind-elemental chakra."

"Yeah, I was a little slow on the uptake," the blond admitted with a chuckle. "Hey, are you busy? Why don't I buy you a drink for saving my ass in there?"

Before Kakashi could point out that they were leaving early the next day for Suna, Naruto and Shikamaru were already making their way down the hall, chatting amiably.

* * *

The next day, Team Seven cut a grueling pace westward towards the Land of Wind. Besides a brief stop at a small village in River Country to fill up on water, the four Konoha-nin traveled through the day and well into the night, only sleeping for a few hours before setting off again. By mid-afternoon on the second day they had entered into the desert.

It was hard going, and the desolate landscape took a toll on their pace. Surrounded by a flat, white line of sand for as far as the eye could see, even Naruto felt exhaustion overtake him faster than usual. It was not long before Kakashi called for a rest so that they could sleep through the worst heat of the day.

Later that night, Team Seven set up camp. They were perhaps half a day's distance from Suna. Although the daytime was scorching hot, at night the desert retained no heat and became frigidly cold, to the point where the Konoha-nin had to light a small fire and huddle around it to keep warm.

As they sat around the fire and stared stupidly into the flames, Sakura asked suddenly, "Exactly how 'undercover' is this mission going to be, Kakashi-sensei?"

It took a minute for the jounin to clear his head of the afterimages of the fire and respond. "This mission isn't meant to be too dangerous. We're ostensibly here on a diplomatic mission, to talk over the terms of the chuunin exams Suna's hosting next year. But Suna-nin aren't exactly stupid -- I'm sure they'll realize that we're here to scope out their new Kage, if they haven't already. Hopefully they'll want to remain on good terms with our village and let us meet with him."

Never one to leave out the worst-case scenario, Sasuke prompted, "And if we're not lucky?"

"If you want to start a war with another village, what better way than to hold a team of their ninja hostage?" Kakashi said dryly.

"We'll have to arrange for some means of escape then, just in case," Sakura concluded, stating the obvious.

They were silent for a few minutes. Despite the chill, Naruto found himself beginning to doze off. Then,

"Seems like a pretty stupid mission for the hokage to send his son on," Sasuke said bluntly. "If Naruto's captured, Suna could demand a lot more than usual."

Naruto opened one eye to regard his teammate. "Well," he replied, "That all depends on how keen he is on getting me back."

Sasuke scowled in disgust. "Look, moron, I don't know why you suddenly seem to have all these father issues, but do you really think the hokage would throw you to the dogs? Not exactly good for his public image, for one thing."

The blond turned away from his team. He tilted his head back to peer at the impassive stars, clearly visible in the cloudless desert sky. "Oh, he will. He has before, when the dogs happened to be Danzo-shaped."

* * *

**Author's Note**: Sorry, I know this is short, rough, and not very exciting. The events in Suna will be more entertaining, I promise you.


	4. Chapter 4

disclaimer: i don't own any part of naruto

**The Chain of Change**

_Chapter Four_

_

* * *

_The great chakra beast lashed its single tail violently back and forth as it rose to its full height. Sand billowed in thick streams, obscuring all but the tanuki's massive form. Shukaku's twisted voice sounded in an insane laugh as it leveled the village with lazy sweeps of its paws, shaking the earth with every step.

A godzilla formed from sand had arrived to raze Suna to the ground, and so far the only person not fleeing before it was Naruto, although he was very seriously considering the option.

Wind-blown sand lashed at the blond as he ran towards the colossus. The few villagers not wholly consumed by fear shouted after him as he passed them by; through the strength of his resolve Naruto managed to ignore them and the screaming voice of his own sense of self-preservation. "It's okay," the blond said out loud in an attempt to reassure himself, but his voice was lost a whirl of destructive noise. "I just have to wake him up, that's all. Piece of cake."

The tanuki continued to laugh as it batted down a few more buildings for good measure. Like a toddler presented with blocks, it seemed to be rather focused on knocking down anything before it that was taller than some set threshold. Fortunately, this meant that it was too occupied to go after the villagers, but Naruto had a feeling that, once it ran out of things to smash, Shukaku would be perfectly happy to start ripping people into shreds.

When he finally got within reach, the Konoha-nin stopped and stood his ground. He closed his eyes and forcibly slowed his breathing. Concentrated, tried to drown out the chaotic sounds that surrounded him. He was horribly out of practice, and it took a while for the calming feeling of natural energy to wash over him.

Shukaku paused in mid-strike as a great screech cut through the air. Seconds later it received a nasty surprise as its left arm was completely sheared off at the shoulder. The sand demon roared in anger, swiveling its great head back and forth in order to locate the one who had dared injured it. Finally, its gaze found the lone Konoha-nin. The blond's eyes were still rimmed red with sage chakra. A shadow clone stood next to him, helping to support a newly-formed Rasenshruiken.

With a wild yell, Naruto and the clone hurled the second Rasenshruiken towards Shukaku. The sand beast reacted instantly, but it was too bulky to move away fast enough, and the jutsu impacted directly with its torso.

The resulting vortex of wind eroded a great hole in the demon's middle, but unfortunately Shukaku was simply too large to be blown apart. Though the Rasenshruiken usually had no trouble shredding people into tiny bits, the tanuki was probably taller than the hokage's tower and also made of sand. Naruto was well aware of the futility of attacking Shukaku's body. They were surrounded by the desert. There was simply no way for him to completely wear away the demon's massive form faster than it restored itself.

But at least Shukaku had noticed him. He could bank on the tanuki's bloodlust to lure it out of the village. If he lived that long.

Of all the stupid shit he'd gotten himself into through the years, this had to top the list.

* * *

_One day prior:_

No one was in a good mood by the time they reached Suna's impressively tiered gates; the combination of desert heat with relentless travel had all of Team Seven on edge. Even the normally unflappable Kakashi seemed impatient as he negotiated with the guards for their admittance. Fortunately, it only took a few minutes for the Suna-nin to go over their documents and assign one of their own to lead them into the village's interior.

Their guide, a brown-haired ninja who had been henged into inconspicuousness but retained an annoyingly noticeable manner of ending his sentences, showed them to a modest apartment near the center of the village and then (thankfully) left to their own devices. Wisely, Kakashi gave his team the rest of the day to relax and promptly fell asleep.

Sakura looked at their unconscious sensei in disgust, then said to her teammates, "You guys want to go explore the village a bit?"

"We should probably stay put," Sasuke pointed out. "There might be enemies of Konoha who know we're here."

"You," Naruto said, "Are waaay too paranoid." And then he dropped his gear and left.

He didn't have far to go, but apparently the Suna-nin shadowing him was not very good at his job, as Naruto managed to lose him within a few blocks. The typically cramped and maze-like streets grew wider as the blond neared his destination. Even the houses began to look nicer in general. Being the former Kazekage's son, Gaara had always lived in an upscale part of town.

Every hidden village had its own unique architectural style, usually at least partially dictated by its natural surroundings. That being said, it was never obvious to Naruto why Suna preferred domes instead of flat roofs. Maybe it had something to do with staving off the heat. The building where Gaara lived was always cool. It was also basically just a giant hemisphere of sandstone, the same drab, dusty color as the desert.

Naruto raised a fist to knock, but the door opened before he could complete the action, and he found himself staring at Temari.

"I saw you on your way here," She said. "Come in."

The house Gaara shared with his siblings had changed drastically since Naruto had last visited. Before, it had seemed that the building's occupants held no particular attachment to the place, but now it looked like they had actually bothered to try and furnish the place, making it seem a great deal more... homey. Nice.

Temari led him into the kitchen and poured him a tall glass of iced tea. "Gaara's not home," She said.

He took a sip. It was cold and minty, delightfully refreshing. "Is he out on a mission?"

"You could say that," the kunoichi smiled. "Are you here with the diplomatic team Konoha sent?"

"Yeah, I'm sort of... on that team."

Temari glanced sharply at him. "You said you had no intentions of returning to duty."

"No intentions, but --" Naruto rubbed the back of his head sheepishly -- "I guess Konoha didn't like having its loose cannon unaccounted for. When's your brother coming back?"

"Any minute now, probably."

And with impeccable coincidence, the front door opened again and Gaara of the Sand stepped inside. He wore a white robe over his dark clothes, and in his hand was a wide-brimmed hat emblazoned with the symbol of wind. Black-rimmed eyes peered impassively at his blond guest.

"Long time no see, Naruto."

Gaara had perfect comedic timing, even if it was unintentional. The relaxed atmosphere rapidly dissipated as Naruto erupted.

"Gaara! You fucking son of a bitch! Why didn't you tell me that _you're_ the goddamn _Kazekage_?"

The redhead smiled faintly. "I wanted it to be a surprise."

"Good job," Naruto groused. "I'm surprised. Now can we go and get wasted already?"

* * *

There was a knock on the door. Kakashi answered it, only to find himself staring into the face of an unfamiliar ninja: Tall, with pale skin and red hair. There were thick black markings around his eyes and a curious tattoo on the left side of his forehead. He wore no hitai-ite, but had strapped onto his back an enormous, battered-looking gourd.

"I've brought Naruto back," the stranger said, stepping to the side. Kakashi tried to appear unfazed as his wayward blond student appeared, supported by a pillow of floating sand.

"Hi Kakashi-sensei," Naruto slurred weakly before trailing off into incomprehensibility. He was obviously very drunk.

"Er," the jounin said, blinking. He opened the door wide to let Naruto stumble inside and onto a couch. The strange ninja guided the sand in a thin, rope-like stream back into his gourd with a closed fist.

"I am Gaara," he said simply. "Sorry for the trouble. Naruto always thinks that he can outdrink me."

Gaara of the Sand, Kakashi recalled. Son of the former Kazekage. A particularly powerful ninja who was host to the One-Tailed Shukaku, and as such, held power over the flow of sand. There had also been rumors amongst the ANBU that the jinchuuriki of Suna was a completely sadistic psycho. Fortunately, Gaara seemed to be in reasonable control of his faculties. He didn't even look tipsy, the jounin marveled.

"No trouble. Thanks for bringing him back. I was starting to get worried."

"You needn't be," the redhead replied. "I will personally guarantee your team's safety during your stay here." He turned to leave. "I look forward to seeing you tomorrow, Hatake-san."

Kakashi watched as the Suna-nin left, his visible eye narrowed. Then he closed the door and directed his attention to Naruto, who was draped bonelessly over the couch, looking a little sick.

"If you're gonna puke, go do it in the bathroom," Kakashi told him heartlessly.

"Is he gone?" The blond asked, groaning.

"Yes, he's gone. Care to tell me how you came to know the Kazekage?"

Naruto giggled. "Hah, Kakashi-sensei, you're pretty smart!" Then he frowned and said, "I'm going out for a smoke."

Kakashi frowned. Coming out of Naruto's mouth, that could mean anything from "I am going to go outside and smoke a cigarette" to "I am going to find a brothel and fuck my brains out and show up tomorrow three hours late to a one-hour meeting with a giant hangover." But he was beginning to understand that self-destructive behavior was the way the blond had learned to avoid the larger issues in his life. Including, apparently, his inability to open up in any way to anyone.

"Naruto, you're not going anywhere," the jounin said, making his voice as flat as possible. "And don't dodge my question."

Naruto peered cynically up at him. "Is that an order, Hatake-san?"

The jounin sucked in a breath, then let it out in a sigh. "No," he said finally.

For a minute, he thought the blond was going to high-tail it out of the apartment. Then Naruto sagged back against the couch, his eyes clouded with unspoken thoughts.

"Of all the people I could be talking to. You must be taking advantage of my drunk state," he said quietly, not sounding drunk at all. A slow smile warmed his expression.

Awkwardly, Kakashi began, "You don't --"

"I wish I could tell you that I wrecked havoc everywhere when I left Konoha, but that would be a lie."

The jounin blinked at his student, who was suddenly grinning at him, although it looked more like a grimace.

"In my desire to get as far as humanly possible from Konoha, I got lost and somehow ended up in the middle of the fucking desert. In retrospect, it may have worked out better if I had attempted to navigate while sober. Anyway. I stumbled into Team Baki -- er, that's Gaara and his two older siblings, Temari and Kankuro. They had just returned from a mission and their jounin-sensei had been killed. Obviously, I caught them at a bad time."

"Baki... That's right, this would be right about when Orochimaru did a number on Suna," Kakashi mused.

"Yeah, well. Gaara tried to kill me, pretty much immediately. He was, uh, kinda crazy back then."

Kakashi, recalling the lacerated body in the morgue, and then the easy, almost unconscious way Gaara had nudged sand into life, wondered at the battle that must have been.

"Anyway, eventually Temari recognized me and told Gaara to stop, because I was the hokage's son." Naruto chuckled a little. "Gaara went fucking apeshit. He went into this half-Gaara, half-Shukaku mode, almost killed me. Even his siblings couldn't stop him."

"But you did."

"Yeah. It wasn't easy, but I managed to incapacitate him. In their gratitude, Temari and Kankuro tied me up and carried us both back to Suna. But since Suna and Konoha were ostensibly allies back then, they treated me pretty well. Took me to their house. I asked them not to tell anyone that I was there... surprisingly, they didn't. Suna was mourning the Yondaime, so no one really noticed me anyway.

"Except Gaara. He would come visit me every day. The first time, I thought he was going to finish me off, but it turns out he just wanted to talk. Apparently, I was the first person who'd ever beaten him. And we had something in common."

Kakashi had heard of the Yondaime Kazekage's treatment of his youngest son. "Father issues," he guessed dryly.

"Yeah. It was the start of a beautiful friendship. Anyway, eventually I managed to talk Gaara out of the whole crazy thing. He's kind of a pacifist now, actually."

There was certainly more to the story than that, but Kakashi didn't press him. Instead he said, "Mind telling me why you didn't say something sooner?"

"Hey, I didn't know he was the fucking Kazekage until this afternoon!" Naruto protested. "I haven't seen the guy in awhile, alright?"

Kakashi snorted softly, but believed him.

"Well, that's it. Can I have my smoke now?"

"Go to sleep. You need to quit -- and that's an order." Seeing Naruto bristle, the jounin added, this time in a softer tone, "We're going to have to talk about Danzo sometime. For both our sakes."

"Yeah, probably," Naruto muttered, sounding less than enthusiastic. Then he closed his eyes and fell asleep on the couch.

* * *

In the end, no one had seen it coming, but several people really should have.

The meeting had been brief. All the details of the upcoming Chuunin Exams had been hammered out with surprising ease. Gaara made an intelligent and straightforward Kazekage, so it didn't surprise anyone when he bluntly informed them of Suna's stance towards Konoha.

It did seem to displease a few of his advisors, however, when Gaara stated his intention to honor the alliance between the two countries. They looked on the conversation with narrowed eyes, but did not say anything.

There were some in Suna who still blamed Konoha for the loss of their previous Kazekage. Although Orochimaru had been operating under someone else's banner by then, he was still a Konoha missing-nin. Furthermore, the past few years had surfaced a handful of ugly rumors concerning Konoha's direct involvement in the situation.

Once, Kakashi might have put those rumors out of mind, but given his recent encounters with the length of Danzo's reach, he was no longer so sure that the theories were unfounded.

Afterwards, they decided to meet up with Gaara's siblings and get lunch. Team Seven had been allowed to choose the place, but ultimately Kakashi had been forced to step in between their bickering and decide, settling on okonomiyaki.

Unfortunately, they had barely stepped out into the street when it happened. A large, odd-looking white bird flitted down from somewhere. It moved in a strangely mechanical way, peering at them with hollow eyes. Then the creature exploded.

Immediately a wave of sand blanketed them. It absorbed most of the impact, but they were all blown back in separate directions.

Kakashi managed to find his students, who were fortuitously still together, in the midst of the confusion. Sasuke, eyes whirling, shouted and pointed to where Gaara lay on the ground. Apparently, in his rush in directing his sand to protect everyone else, the jinchuuriki had paid too little attention to covering himself. Standing beside his prone body was the henged guard who'd escorted them to their apartment the previous day.

"You!" Naruto snarled, preparing to charge rashly at him. Sasuke was barely able to pull him back as two more explosions, smaller this time but no less dangerous, went off before them, creating a large plume of dust that further obscured the Kazekage from view.

"Let me go!" Naruto snarled. When Sasuke didn't, he expounded, "Gaara's unconscious! At this rate, fucking Shukaku will --"

He didn't have a chance to continue. The sand that lay dormant on the ground began to tremble, then exploded into the air, streaming around them in a frenetic dance. They turned to see Gaara, standing, his eyes closed and arms outstretched in a parody of supplication. A voice that was not his poured from his mouth, terrible and utterly insane.

"Free! Free at last!"

Naruto swore, loudly. "That's Shukaku," he told his teammates, who were watching in shock as sand enveloped the Kazekage's body, forming a monstrous-looking shell.

"Right," Kakashi said. "Let's --"

Before he could finish his sentence, a white shape came flying towards them. Team Seven scattered before it exploded, creating a crater in the street where they had once been.

"Fuck! Who the fuck is that guy?!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Sakura. Sasuke. You two go after him," Kakashi told them calmly. "Be careful: he seems like a long-range fighter. Naruto and I will take down Shukaku."

By the time he'd said this, the demon tanuki had grown several feet taller and had whipped up a full-blown sandstorm. People ran screaming from the scene in a panic, but at least they had the sense to flee.

"You've dealt with this before, right?" Kakashi asked Naruto as Team Seven split up.

"Not like this. When Gaara's knocked out, Shukaku comes out. That's why he never sleeps."

"So we need to wake him up."

Naruto groaned. "It's not that easy, Kakashi-sensei. You've seen Gaara's sand. It's an absolute defense. It's hard enough when he's awake, but the demon has a lot more power. And we're in the middle of the fucking desert!"

As if to emphasize his words, Shukaku rose to its fully-formed height and casually batted down someone's house. It tilted its head back to give a howl of violent elation, then began to make its way towards the center of Suna.

"We have to get it out of the village," Kakashi said grimly. "Before there is no village."

Meanwhile, explosion-nin was keeping Sakura and Sasuke at bay with well-placed explosives. Then, unexpectedly, Sakura punched into the ground, knocking up several large chunks of rubble skyward and forcing the enemy ninja to scramble away from the shower of rocks that resulted. He managed to avoid being hit, but in that moment of distraction Sasuke had closed the distance between them. The sound of chirping birds filled the air.

When the chaos cleared, Sasuke's raikiri had gone clean through explosion-nin's right shoulder. He had dropped his henge, revealing himself to be a young man with pale blond hair, most of it pulled back in a ponytail, leaving the rest to curtain over his left eye. He wore an Iwagakure hitai-ite with a deep scratch going horizontally through the hidden village symbol and a curious robe, black and emblazoned with red clouds.

The only curious thing Sasuke wore was an expression of shock on his face, which quickly bled into one of pure hatred.

"That robe!" He snarled. "Where is Itachi?!"

Despite the situation he was in, explosion-nin smirked. "Itachi? No, I'm Deidara. I thought you looked like him... yeah..."

His anger completely blanketing good sense, Sasuke wrapped his free hand around the other ninja's neck. "Where. Is. He."

Deidara's smirk widened. "I'll tell you, if you beat me... yeah... For now, have a taste of my art!"

"Sasuke!" It was Sakura, screaming as she ran toward him. "On your arm!"

Sasuke looked down just in time to see a small white spider scuttling along his elbow. As Deidara raised his hand to form the seal that would make it detonate, the Uchiha jerked his arm, throwing the spider up in the air.

Sakura shrieked as the resulting explosion blew both of them back, but Sasuke had it worse. The kunoichi rushed to his side as he staggered to his feet.

"I'm fine," he told her, but his left side was bruised and bloody. "Go after him!"

"Sasuke," she began to say, then stopped, her attention suddenly diverted.

A large, round white bird was rising into the air, Deidara standing on its back.

"Fuck! He's going to get away!" Sasuke raged. Totally lost to anger, he clapped one hand over his left eye.

"No, Sasuke! You can't use that jutsu here --" Sakura began, but before anything could happen, the space around Deidara began to warp and distort. Startled, the missing-nin twisted around as the warping centered around his left arm and focused until, with an indescribable noise, the arm vanished with a spray of blood.

"Damn it," Kakashi swore to himself, his own hand covering his original eye, the other displaying a fully-formed Mangekyo Sharingan. Already he was feeling the incredible strain.

"Sorry, Naruto," he panted. "Sasuke is on the verge of doing something incredibly stupid."

The blond nodded sharply. "I'll lead Shukaku out of the village."

"We'll catch up to you as soon as we can," his jounin-sensei said. Then he added, a bit awkwardly, "I believe in you, Naruto."

* * *

_The present:_

It was nice, Naruto thought, to have someone believe in you.

It would have been nicer if that belief had been placed in a situation like winning a shogi match, or beating someone in a spar. Instead, for some demented reason Kakashi had to believe in his ability to save an entire village from certain destruction by a rampaging four-story tall monster.

At least he still had Shukaku on his tail. They were more or less at the outskirts of the village now, where the great wall divided Suna from endless desert.

With a few chakra-enhanced leaps, Naruto summited the wall and faced the enormous beast.

"Pathetic maggot," the creature spat. "I will crush you!"

"No doubt," Naruto agreed. "But you'll have to catch me first, shithead!" And with that, he dove off the wall and into the desert.

Shukaku followed, plowing through the enormous structure as if it were made of cardboard. The amount of sand in the air was amazing. It was only Naruto's own skillful manipulation of the wind around him that kept his skin from being eroded away.

For a brief moment the two opponents stood motionless, one dwarfing the other, while the desert wailed around them.

Then the blond bit his thumb and slammed his hand into the ground, hoping desperately that he had enough chakra left for what he was about to do.

When the coils of smoke cleared, the great scarred toad Gamabunta stared coldly down at his summoner.

"Brat," he said in his deep, rumbling voice, "I haven't forgiven you yet."

"That's fine," Naruto replied, as if they were having a conversation over coffee. "D'you think you can forgive me enough though, to stop this sand demon from killing me?"

The great toad locked eyes with Shukaku. "A frog!" the tanuki screamed in its twisted voice. "I'll rend your flesh and dance on your bones!"

Gamabunta gave a long-suffering sigh. "Kid, I don't know how you manage to get yourself in these kinds of situations. But for the sake of your old man, climb on."

"What about for my own sake?" Naruto muttered as he alighted on top Gamabunta's head. "We've got to get close enough so I can jump over and smack Gaara until he wakes up."

With a degree of swiftness surprising for his size, Gamabunta surged forward, brandishing his great knife. Shukaku leapt back to avoid the blow, but the knife caught him in side and he screeched with pain. Immediately sand snaked from the ground to fill in the wound. Recovering, the sand demon sucked in a vast amount of air and pounded hard on his hugely distended belly.

The resulting bullets of wind rent air and sand alike. Gamabunta managed to avoid the first barrage, but the second caught him by surprise, connecting with his shoulder and knocking him back several hundred meters. The toad regained his feet with a groan.

"Can't take too many more of those, kid. You got a light?"

The toad boss jumped forward once more, this time spewing a large stream of oil from his mouth, which Naruto promptly set on fire with a quick katon jutsu. The impromptu flamethrower enveloped the lower part of Shukaku's body with a heat so fierce that it temporarily immobilized the tanuki's legs.

Gamabunta charged at the demon once more, intending to take Naruto close enough to jump over, but Shukaku flailed madly, one of its paws clipping the air inches above the blond's head. The accompanying wind nearly knocked Naruto off the toad boss, but he hung on gamely.

"No good," Gamabunta panted. "Again!"

He inhaled and spat, but this time Naruto waited until Shukaku's arm had been drenched in oil before loosing his fire jutsu. The tanuki's limb lit up violently, and as it patted the flames out, Gamabunta was able to bear Naruto close enough to where Gaara's body lay, embedded in Shukaku's great head.

"Good luck, brat," Naruto heard the toad boss say as he dashed forward and leapt for all he was worth. "I'm at my limit, so I'll see you later."

He did not land prettily, but the blond was able to hold on and regain his feet. He scrambled for Gaara, but before he could get to him, a massive paw of sand enveloped him, plucking him off as if he were a fly. The ground and sky whirled into one around him as he was lifted away.

Shukaku's massive face leered at him psychotically as it screeched, "Suffer! I will make your death slow!" And the demon began to squeeze.

The pressure was overwhelming. It didn't take long before Naruto felt his ribs crack and his vision begin to blur. As he felt himself slip into unconsciousness, something seemed crawl up from deep within him -- something that burned and roiled with ancient anger. It was a part of himself that he had felt before, always familiar, sometimes closer to the surface than others. It had always been there to feed his deep-seated rage against Konoha and against his father, but now it was stirring into a different action.

Shukaku screamed in agony as the paw holding the Konoha-nin suddenly became enveloped in a dense mass of red chakra. The sand itself began to dissolve from the sheer heat, reforming as glass. An overwhelming presence blanketed the tanuki's small mind with a feeling of sheer terror.

"You!" the tanuki howled. "I know you!"

But it was Naruto's voice that answered him, although it was tinged with something deep and terrible.

"What the fuck are you talking about? Fucking burn, shithead!" And the blond wrenched free of its grasp, landing lightly on the lump of glass that used to be Shukaku's paw. Flaming chakra surrounded him and enveloped the whole of the demon's arm. Sand melted red-hot and dripped viscously onto the ground.

"You're fucking dead!" Naruto screamed, and in that moment he sounded rather psychotic himself. Waves of heat exploded from as the tide of red climbed higher and higher, licking the edge of Shukaku's head and growing dangerously close to Gaara's prone body. The air around the tanuki's body shimmered, mirage-like.

Then someone was screaming at him, "Naruto! Stop!"

It was Sasuke, bleeding and limping toward him. Sakura followed, supporting their jounin-sensei. All three were battered-looking and covered with dust.

The Uchiha's voice brought Naruto back to sanity, and suddenly he realized what he was doing, causing his rage to dissipate instantly. Slowly, the red chakra faded out like a dying flame.

Naruto scrambled along the curve of Shukaku's head, knelt by Gaara's exposed face, and gave it a good smack. The redhead's eyes snapped awake, and what remained of Shukaku's body also began to dissipate, leaving behind a platform of sand that bore Naruto and Gaara gently back down to earth.

"Ugh," the Kazekage winced, rubbing his head. "Fuck." He looked around. The wind was already gently redistributing the giant pile of sand Shukaku had left behind, but in addition there were large lumps of wickedly-edged glass everywhere. "What happened?"

Adrenaline was quickly leaving Naruto's body and being replaced by a feeling of heavy exhaustion. Still, he managed to grin at his friend.

"I'll tell you all about it later, but it's good to have you back," he said to Gaara. Then he closed his eyes. Gaara managed to catch him in a cushion of sand before he hit the ground.

* * *

Sasori watched from the distance, frowning. So Deidara had been killed. That was a great loss, as their organization numbered so few, but in return they had discovered the whereabouts of the Kyuubi at last. The leader's plan could finally be set into motion.

With a whirl of sand, the Suna missing-nin vanished from sight to report his findings.

* * *

Revised 8/9/09


	5. Chapter 5

disclaimer: i don't own any part of naruto

**The Chain of Change**

_Chapter Five_

_

* * *

_

At the border between Fire and River country, where forests gave way to water-cut mountains, an ANBU stood with a bird in his hands.

It was a rust-colored desert hawk, a species indigenous to Suna and commonly used in its native country as a messenger bird. Indeed, someone had placed a collar around its neck and attached to it a small pocket the size of a pillbox. However, this bird had been struck down from the sky before it managed to reach its intended destination. One of its wings was bent at an unnatural angle, obviously broken. The other flapped wildly like a flag caught in the wind as it struggled ferociously against its captor.

Even though its wicked talons and beak scored several deep gashes across his skin, the ANBU didn't even flinch as he calmly adjusted his grip and broke the hawk's neck with one smooth twist of his hands. He removed the message from its container and tucked it carefully into one of the many pouches gathered at his waist. Then, blurring through a series of seals, he set the bird's corpse aflame with a katon jutsu.

By the time the fire died out sufficiently to uncover a pile of charred bones and feathers, the ANBU was already well on his way back to Konoha.

* * *

On account of the large amount of sensitive material kept there, Danzo had gone through great pains to conceal his private study. Few were even aware of its existence, and only two other Konoha-nin – the top-ranking members of ROOT who served as his personal bodyguards – knew its exact location: a storage unit in the residential sector leased under the name of a civilian.

Even they were not with him tonight as Danzo pulled the intercepted missive from Suna out from one wide sleeve and spread it out on his work desk. The flame of his lamp flickered wildly in the drafty room, casting constantly shifting light over strangely formed characters.

It was an encrypted message, but of a very special variety. Danzo doubted that even the code unit had access to its key. Only the leaders of the hidden villages, the five kages, were allowed to use this particular cipher. Thus, in Konoha, only the hokage held the scroll needed to unscramble the message… And Danzo, who had previously taken the opportunity to make a copy for himself.

Transation only took a few minutes. The completed message was not very long, and written in a cool, clipped tone. The elder wondered about the one who had composed it, but he was offered no insight into the mind of the Kazekage.

On the subject of Namikaze Naruto, the contents were much more revealing.

Danzo read the message twice, just to be sure. Then he threw the scroll over his lamp. It quickly caught on fire, scattering small fragments of burning paper into the air that glowed like summer fireflies.

The elder sat back in his chair with a loud sigh. For sixteen years he had waited for some indication of the Kyuubi's location. Despite the Sandaime's dying speculation, the demon fox had never shown itself.

Until now.

Danzo had always been adept at playing father and son against each other in the interest of maintaining his own influence over the village. The truth of Kyuubi's existence could undermine all of his efforts. It was bad enough that Naruto was back in Konoha. Danzo was sure of one thing: if the boy could not be controlled, then he would have to be killed.

The elder snuffed out his lamp before sweeping out of the room and into the night.

* * *

Naruto woke up to the uncomfortable sensation of being smothered in white and immediately realized two things: first, that he was in a hospital, and second, that he wanted to check out of said hospital as quickly as humanly possible.

However, his body apparently didn't want to cooperate. Even the act of sitting up in the bed caused stabbing pains to pierce his chest. The blond lifted up the edge of his hospital gown to reveal taped ribs and badly bruised skin. Considering that he usually recovered pretty quickly, Shukaku must have given him one hell of a thrashing.

Though his body felt exhausted, Naruto's mind was restless. He had been placed in a private room, and though it was one of the expensive, nice kinds, there wasn't anyone in sight – not even a medic-nin to tell him how long he'd been out. There was a call button on the wall next to his bed, and for a minute he considered pressing it, but then he realized that it would probably just result in a prolonged, uncomfortable checkup and decided to leave it alone.

Another (worse) idea struck him. Taking a deep breath, he sat back against the annoyingly soft pillows and touched the tips of the fingers of each hand together, then closed his eyes and tried to relax to absolute stillness. This time, he felt the nature chakra draw in more quickly, bathing him in warmth and dulling the pain of his injuries.

He sensed about a dozen chakra signatures, all but two of them static. The mobile ones, most likely corresponding to patrolling medic-nin, were fairly faint and therefore probably far away. This was his chance.

Carefully, Naruto extracted himself from the bed. He was able to stand without much difficulty. Even without the aid of natural chakra, his legs would probably be strong enough to hold him up, which was a good sign. He gently tugged the IV free from his forearm and removed the other electrodes taped over his torso as best as he could, then dug around in the closet until he found his clothes.

He had just finished pulling on his pants on when he felt an enormous chakra presence enter eth building and continue toward his room. Realizing that it could only belong to one person, Naruto swore and headed for the window, not even bothering with his shirt. He managed to get two of the latches undone before sand streamed in between him and the window, blocking his access.

"Naruto, get your ass back in bed." Gaara's voice was not amused.

The blond scowled at his friend, who was standing in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest. "You are no. Fun," Naruto said, but complied. His sage chakra was rapidly dissipating anyhow, which meant that the pain was beginning to return.

"If you try something like that again," Gaara said calmly, "I will tell the medic-nin, and they will chain you to the bed."

"Kinky," Naruto said. "I've always like the idea of nurses having their way with me." His expression, however, suggested otherwise.

The Kazekage moved to the side of the bed, noting with narrowed green eyes the electrodes and discarded IV line that lay on the ground. "I am going to call a nurse in here," he said.

"Traitor!" Naruto exclaimed, but Gaara was already pushing the call button.

It took less than a minute for a medic-nin to arrive: an older man, maybe forty-five, grizzled-looking and missing a notable chunk out of his nose. He took in the situation immediately, saluted, and said, "Shall I send for the straps, Kazekage-sama?"

Seeing the man's expression, Naruto turned positively green.

Luckily, Gaara was feeling merciful, as he quickly fabricated an excuse as to why all of the monitoring devices that had once been attached to the blond's body had somehow ended up on the floor. The medic-nin frowned, obviously not really buying it, but he did not question the Kazekage's story. Instead, he prepared a fresh IV and "accidentally" missed Naruto's vein a few times when trying to reinsert it.

"If you're awake," the medic-nin said briskly after he had rendered his patient hospital-complaint once more, "I should give you a quick check-up."

"Uh, I'm really tired right now," Naruto said. "Maybe later?" He added lamely.

"Very well," the nurse said, excusing himself.

"You know," Naruto said after he'd left, "It's really not fucking fair. I fight and beat you – again – but I'm the one who ends up looking like shit."

"At least you're alive," Gaara replied. "What were you thinking, going up against Shukaku by yourself?"

"It's not like I had a choice," Naruto countered. "Kakashi had his hands full after my idiot teammate tried to set the village on fire. Permanently."

The Kazekage sighed, running a hand through his dark red hair. It was an unusually human gesture, and from it Naruto suddenly realized how worn out his friend looked, how his eyes were even more shadowed than usual.

Gaara must have somehow sensed his sudden worry, because a small smile appeared on his face. "I'm fine," he said. "The villagers actually took the whole thing quite well."

Naruto was incredulous. "You mean… you went ape-shit crazy on Suna, knocked down about twenty buildings, and everyone's cool with it?"

"Not everyone," the redhead admitted. "A few people wanted to arrest your team."

"They think _we_ knocked you unconscious?"

"Konoha and Suna have never been on the best of terms. I'm trying, but the Orochimaru incident is still in everyone's minds."

"It figures that creepy bastard would be causing us problems from beyond the grave," Naruto muttered.

They fell into silence after that. Gaara seated himself in one of the plastic visitor's chairs by Naruto's bed and stared out the window, his eyes distant. He seemed calm enough, but it did not escape Naruto's attention that something seemed to be troubling him. The blond chose not to pry and instead lay back against his pillow, feeling exhaustion beginning to weigh down his eyelids.

Abruptly, Gaar's voice brought him back to attention.

"Naruto… what did you do to stop Shukaku at the end of the fight?"

For a minute, Naruto said nothing. He had been expecting this question, but was unsure how to answer it, was even dreading thinking about it because it reminded him how completely, frighteningly out of control he had been.

Gaara sensed his hesitation and amended quickly, "You don't have to –"

"No," Naruto interrupted, "It's better if I do." He frowned, drew into himself until his memory was bathed in the desert wind. He remembered the overwhelming feeling of sand closing in on him like a vice, squeezing and squeezing until the pressure seemed unbearable. The pounding of blood in his heart, in his skull. The red heat rising inside his chest like a building tide.

"Shukaku was killing me," the blond said slowly. "I thought it was going to crush me into pieces. At first I was starting to pass out, but then I began to feel really strange. Kind of angry that it had beaten me." He blinked. "That's pretty weird, isn't it? You'd think that I'd be scared that I was gonna die, not angry because some giant sand monster had gotten the better of me. Anyway, that was when this red chakra appeared everywhere and started melting Shukaku into goo. I've never seen anything like it before, but I think it was coming from me, because the angrier I got, the more of it there was. But that doesn't make sense either, 'cuz summoning Gamabunta ate up the last of my reserves."

His friend said nothing for a moment, but turned back to the window, face shadowed. Naruto knew the Suna-nin well enough to recognize that he was thinking deeply about something. Gaara, in his own right, was as much of a genius as Sasuke or Shikamaru, only his intellect was of the steady, tenacious kind. Faced with a problem, Gaara would not let go until he had devised an elegant, effective solution. So Naruto flopped back against his pillow and waited for him to sort it out.

Finally, Gaara spoke, but it was far from what Naruto expected to hear.

"You know, sometimes I can feel Shukaku's emotions if they're strong enough. And he doesn't like you."

"Shukaku's a demon, Gaara," Naruto said, as if pointing out the obvious. "I didn't know it liked _anyone_."

"Yes, but he really, _really_ doesn't like _you_. In fact, I think he's afraid of you."

"Uh, what?" Out of all the adjectives Naruto could use to describe the demon, "fearful" was not one of them.

"Exactly," Gaara agreed. "There isn't much that Shukaku would be afraid of, and humans are at the bottom of his list. The only thing I can come up with is maybe another tailed beast."

"Exactly where are you going with this?" Naruto asked, confused.

"A higher-ranking bijuu – well, I suppose that could be any of them. But a bijuu with red chakra… and the Yondaime was the one who coincidentally sealed the Kyuubi."

Realizing where his friend was going with this, the blond broke out laughing, then winced as pain jolted through his abused chest. "Gaara, I think that I would know if I were a jinchuuriki!"

Gaara's only response was to give Naruto a flat look.

"Dude, you don't mean—" The Konoha-nin's laugh faltered. "You can't be serious!"

"Have you actually _seen_ the statue your father supposedly sealed the Kyuubi into?"

"No, why the hell would I want to go look at it? Besides, it's not exactly a museum exhibit – the ANBU have it under 24-hour surveillance!"

"I don't know then," Gaara said. He looked tired. "But that's the conclusion I come to after considering everything that happened. I think we should talk to Hatake-san when he wakes up."

"Uh," Naruto said, "Sure. Wait, he's not awake yet? How long have I been out?"

"Two days. The medic-nin say that Hatake-san is expected to regain consciousness today as well." Gaara glanced at the small clock mounted on the wall, frowning at how quickly the numbers had changed. "I should go. I'll let your teammates know that you've regained consciousness."

"Gee, thanks," the blond muttered as his friend left the room. Too tired to give Gaara's words any serious consideration, but too restless to go back to sleep, he leaned further into the lumpy bed and tried to amuse himself by counting the cracks in the ceiling.

* * *

Mouse and Eagle always patrolled together; it was one of the perks of being on Danzo's payroll. And while the pair rarely conversed – ROOT training tended to select against garrulousness – having a constant companion while on duty was nevertheless reassuring. Thus, neither of them thought anything of it when they were both switched that night from watching the village gate to guarding the hokage. The Yondaime often worked late, but for some reason the regular patrol schedule ended at eight, so it wasn't unusual for on-duty ANBU to be reassigned on short notice.

The hokage was still hard at work when they arrived at the tower to relieve the previous watch. He was seated behind a desk stacked high with paperwork, scribbling his way through a thick packet with a small frown on his face. Relations between Konoha and the other hidden villages had been dissolving recently at a fast clip; diplomatically, it was the hokage who had to pick up the slack, and that meant letters to be written, envoys to be debriefed, and, of course, spies to be selected and dispatched.

Not that Mouse or Eagle knew anything about the matter. Their knowledge of the current state of affairs was that it caused the Yondaime to work late. Whatever effect it might have had on the man was of little concern to them. Their allegiance was to Danzo first; keeping watch over the hokage was just a pretext to maintain the illusion of their loyalty.

Thus, neither of them was really paying particular attention when, at around nine o'clock, two masked nin smashed through the panoramic windows and immediately set upon Konoha's leader with the intent to kill.

It was painfully clear to the ANBU, even as they leapt toward the hokage's desk, that they were far too late. Trained assassins killed in an instant; their task was only made easier when the target was taken unawares. Loose sheets of paper flew everywhere, obscuring the hokage and his assailants from view. The room was completely, overwhelmingly silent.

It was over in the space of a second, and when everything had settled, the Yondaime was standing over two unmoving bodies. There was blood streaked over his white robes; it was impossible to tell whose it was. He held in his hand one of his signature three-pronged kunai. Another was buried in the ground a few feet away.

"ANBU!" The hokage bellowed. His expression was terrifying. "Where the hell are my ANBU?!"

Mouse and Eagle watched as the office suddenly began to fill with masked Konoha-nin. If the events hadn't happened so quickly, they might have anticipated what was coming next and made a successful escape. Unfortunately, in their dazed state, they were barely able to register that the majority of the ANBU present seemed to hail from ROOT.

"I thought," the Yondaime was saying, in a quiet but dangerous tone, "That becoming hokage meant that I no longer had to kill people myself. That I had my ANBU to protect me." He placed the kunai in his hand on the desk. There was an audible click as metal met wood in the silent, motionless room. "When the protection of my son had been bungled, I thought it had been an honest mistake. Now I'm not so sure. Something stinks in this organization, and I intend to find out what." The blond's eyes were glacial and intense. "Nara!"

Some of the ninja present flinched at the breach of protocol, but no one said anything as a deer-masked ANBU approached their leader and saluted lazily.

"Yes, Hokage-sama."

"I want everyone present here to be shaken down. Find out where their loyalties actually lie."

"Sir," Shikamaru acknowledged. "Should I have everyone taken down to Ibiki-san's division?"

"No," the hokage said. "Bring Ibiki and his force here. I'll see to it that no one leaves."

Shikamaru saluted again and vanished.

Mouse peered around the hokage's desk. The bodies of the two "assassins" were gone as well. That was about when most of the ROOT-nin realized that they had been set up.

* * *

Contrary to what Gaara had predicted, Kakashi woke up two days later. By then, Naruto had recovered enough to be officially discharged, although the hospital made a point of sending a medic-nin to check up on him daily. This irritated Sakura, who took it as a direct insult to her own abilities and compensated by zealously monitoring Naruto's condition. Between her ministrations and his injuries, Naruto found to his dismay that his activity was still heavily confined.

So, despite the fact that they were returning to the hospital, Naruto enthusiastically accompanied his teammates to go visit their convalescent jounin-sensei.

They found Kakashi sitting up in bed, engrossed in one of his perverted little books. The blond wondered how the man had smuggled it in. He'd probably gotten a nurse to do it; the jounin could be pretty charming if he put his mind to it.

"Yo," the man said as they came in, raising one hand in greeting.

"Kakashi-sensei, stop trying to act cool and put that trash away," Sakura snapped. Naruto had to hand it to her: the girl could talk in a way that made crossing her seem like a very, very bad idea.

Sheepishly, their sensei put the book down. He looked haggard – probably hadn't recovered fully from the chakra exhaustion yet – and his movements were slow.

"How are you feeling?" Sasuke asked. Naruto thought that it was unusually considerate of him. Then again, it was arguable Sasuke who had put Kakashi in this situation in the first place.

"Pretty good," the jounin said, though no one believed him. "I think I'll be ready to check out of here soon."

Sakura, who had grabbed Kakashi's chart from where it hung at the foot of his bed, looked up from flipping through it to say, "You're not going anywhere."

"We have to report back to the hokage, especially after what happened with Shukaku," he protested weakly.

"The Kazekage has already sent a message by hawk. There's no need to hurry," Sasuke said.

"This is important – Hawks can be intercepted – " Clearly their sensei was grasping at straws.

"Then Naruto can send another by toad summon," Sakura countered. She was clearly not going to be convinced on the matter.

The three talked with their sensei for a while longer before a nurse came in to usher them out, citing that the jounin was still recovering and needed his rest. They left, promising to visit again soon, and Kakashi asked that they bring another of his smutty books upon returning.

Once outside, Naruto turned to his teammates and said, "You guys go on ahead. I'm going to stop by Gaara's for a bit."

Sakura, still very much in medic-nin mode, protested. "You're still recovering too, Naruto. It's better if you come back with us."

"Why worry about me now?" Naruto said. "You never did before." That wasn't true, and he knew it, but he also knew that the only way to get Sakura off his case was to piss her off. And it did the trick – her eyes narrowed into cold green slits before she stormed off with Sasuke without so much as another word.

The blond watched them go. When their figures had vanished into the distance, he turned and went back into the hospital. It wasn't hard for him to avoid the nurses and get back into Kakashi's room. Apparently sneaking _into _a hospital was a lot easier than sneaking out of one.

His jounin-sensei looked up as he entered. His expression was quizzical.

"What are you doing back here, Naruto?"

"There's something I need to talk to you about," the blond said.

"Well, sure. What is it?"

"It's about the Kyuubi attack."

Kakashi's visible eye widened in surprise. "I don't think I can talk to you about that. You know that it's forbidden."

"It's not like the rule isn't broken all the time already," Naruto pointed out. His voice a little too casual, and it set off alarm bells in the jounin's mind. "Besides, I've already heard the story. I just want to know what _you_ in particular remember about that day."

"Naruto – "

"I'll make it worth your while," his student continued. "You look pretty miserable here. If you tell me, I'll get you out of here."

Suddenly Kakashi's face became so hopeful that another would have mistook the expression for one of intense pain. It was clear that he didn't like hospitals, either.

"Alright," he said shrewdly. "As long as you break me out first. Then I'll tell you everything I know about that day."


	6. Chapter 6

disclaimer: i don't own any part of naruto

**The Chain of Change**

_Chapter Six_

_

* * *

_Himiko was one of just three civilian nurses assigned to the wing devoted to caring for recuperating ninja. She was also the only one there from personal choice; not many of the hospital staff were keen on looking after patients who, in addition to being uncooperative at best and willfully disobedient at worst, were also as a rule insane and well-versed in ways of causing lasting harm to others.

Fortunately, Himiko had been born with a saintly amount of patience and understanding. Therefore, she had been the only one willing to tend to the infamous Copy-nin, a man obviously not used to being confined in a hospital and therefore very eager to be un-bed-ridden. He had only just woken up, and she had already caught him trying to escape twice – the first time, she had discovered a log in place of a body in his bed and, five minutes later, an exhausted ninja collapsed half-way down the stairs; on the second occasion she had walked in at the inopportune moment of him trying to get out via the window. After she got him back into bed, Himiko had issued a warning that, upon any subsequent attempts, he would be immobilized by liberal application of rope and have his food delivered through a tube shoved up his nose.

In reality, the patient's condition had been rapidly improving throughout the day, and it wouldn't have surprised Himiko if he were okay to be released by the next morning. This is why it came as such a shock to her when he died.

She was just passing by his room when she heard the heart monitor alarm go off. Upon dashing inside, she found that the patient had flat-lined and was lying motionless in his bed. Some part of her thought, detachedly, that it was very strange – he had seemed well enough when the other Konoha-nin stopped by for a visit, twenty minutes ago. The rest of her, however, had no time to think.

"Takashi, Naoko, I need help in here! Someone get Dr Souji!" She quickly checked the patient's pulse, then scrambled for the defibrillator when she found none.

Another nurse and a grizzled medic-nin ran into the room just as she was spreading conductive gel over the Copy-nin's chest. Swiftly, Takashi grabbed the paddles and applied them to the patient, one below his right collarbone and the other just at the end of his ribcage on his left side.

"Clear!"

The current sent a spasm through the patient's body, but the monitor showed no change.

"Clear!" Again, nothing. Himiko felt her anxiety begin to build.

"Dammit," Takashi was saying, his hands moving automatically through the procedure. "We can't lose him! He's from the Konoha team… Kazekage-sama will –"

They never found out what the Kazekage was going to do, because Dr Souji arrived at that moment and swiftly took charge of the situation. However, even with his direction, each attempt at defibrillation yielded nothing.

Takashi tried several more times, but as the minutes wore on, it soon became clear that their patient was not going to revive. The ceaseless alarm of the heart monitor began to feel like a physical force crushing into Himiko's skull.

Finally Takashi stood back and expelled a loud sigh. The paddles hung loosely in his hands. "I don't think he's coming back."

Somberly, Dr Souji noted the time of death. Himiko watched as workers arrived to cover the body and take it down to the morgue. She felt distraught. Perhaps if she had just practiced greater vigilance, had forbidden the visitation – but she had no time to dwell on it. There were many others to attend to, and a nurse's work was never done.

* * *

Kakashi breathed a sigh of relief as he removed the sheet from over his head. He sat up, accepted the change of clothes Naruto handed him. The blond turned around as he quickly dressed.

"You come up with the sickest ideas," the jounin said when he was finished. "And why is it that I always end up around corpses when I'm with you?"

"Quiet!" Naruto hissed. "If anyone walks in here, they'll have a shitfit and we'll be fucked."

Kakashi wanted to point out that he hadn't been speaking loudly at all, and that there was no one around besides, but something about hospitals seemed to rile up his student more than usual. Since the jounin could relate to this last sentiment, he kept his thoughts to himself.

When the coast was clear, the pair exited the morgue and made a beeline for the civilian wing. Security, not surprisingly, was a whole lot more lax there. Naruto had also been prudent enough to bring Kakashi a hat whose brim he pulled down firmly in order to obscure the scars on his face. The nurse at the front desk didn't even spare them a second glance as they walked past her and left the building.

As the hospital grew further in the distance, Kakashi began to feel the shakiness return as adrenalin faded away. The electrodes that picked up the rhythm of his heart muscles and the action potentials they generated were sensitive to minute electrical changes. Thus, it had only taken a tiny of lightning chakra to fool the electrodes to assume his lack of a heartbeat. The genjutsu he'd placed upon the nurse to mask his pulse had taken an equally small amount of chakra, but pathetically enough, both tricks had knocked his reserves back down to practically nothing.

Naruto, noticing the jounin's growing exhaustion, managed to get an arm out to support the man before his legs gave out.

"Oof!" the blond said as his sensei's full weight bore down on him, "I'm not sure if this was the best idea anymore. If Sakura finds out about our little stunt, she'll skin us alive."

"Probably," Kakashi agreed bleakly, trying his best _not_ to imagine how the kunoichi would react if she discovered that he'd snuck out of the hospital. Images of extreme violence coupled with rigorously enforced bed rest sprang into mind.

His stomach took the opportunity to rumble loudly.

"Maybe food will do some good," Naruto mused. "If you feel up to it."

Kakashi had safely deposited the slop they'd given him for lunch underneath his bed earlier that day. Bit of a nasty surprise for whatever poor guy they had cleaning the place. "Sounds great. Lead the way."

"Sakura's had me on rice porridge and natto for the past few days. I think it could do you some good."

The meager bits of Kakashi's face that were actually visible turned slightly green. "Naruto, I'd rather—"

"Relax," the blond laughed. "There's a ramen-ya just down the street from here. Nothing like noodles and cold beer to get you back on your feet."

It would figure that Naruto had taken care to scope out the ramen joints in Suna, but Kakashi didn't argue. The thought of the fatty, salty broth was starting to make his mouth water. Together, like a dilapidated chimera, the two hobbled away.

* * *

Somewhere between his third and fourth beer, Kakashi came to two realizations: first, that he really had to pee, and second, that his blond student was being suspiciously proactive about keeping his glass full. Unfortunately, by this point he was buzzed enough to not really care. Besides, the noodles were good, the beer was refreshing, and life outside of the hospital was a glorious and beautiful experience.

He got up, awkwardly, and hobbled to the bathroom, somewhat relieved that he could make it there on his own. It would have been horrifying to have to ask for Naruto's assistance.

"Ojisan! Another bowl please!" The blond was saying when he came back to the bar. Naruto had more or less consumed twice the number of bowls as him and was still going strong. The kid was a black hole when it came to his favorite meal, which was saying something, as most of the time it seemed like he didn't have much of an appetite at all – for food, at least.

"Hai hai," the ramen chef replied, picking up a fresh bowl. "Tonkatsu, right?"

While he was waiting, Naruto turned to face the jounin, wearing a grin that made him feel very, very uncomfortable. "Kakashi-sensei, I've held up my end, it's your turn now."

Kakashi frowned, trying to figure out why Naruto could possibly want this information, and failing. Some small thought prickled the back of his brain, something about the brief glimpse he'd had of the blond's fight with Shukaku, but it was difficult to concentrate, and in a moment he'd forgotten about it anyway.

"Alright," he said finally, "But I don't know why you want to hear it from me. Plus, I wasn't even there when your father defeated the Kyuubi – no one was."

"Just humor me," Naruto said, his tone all too blithe.

"Well," the jounin said, and took another sip of his beer.

* * *

When the Kyuubi appeared, the air around Konoha become thick with its heat. Life withered beneath the beast, and wherever it went, it left behind long swatches of blackened earth. Soon it became apparent that the Kyuubi was making a beeline for the village, and the Konoha-nin responded accordingly, setting up barricades and organizing evacuation routes for civilians. Though the shinobi prepared to fight, it was painfully clear that they had no hope of defeating the massive creature, which was more of a force of nature than an enemy combatant.

Still, there was some hope. The bijuu could not be killed, but they could be sealed. So the hokage, Jiraya, and Sarutobi locked themselves in the library for the few precious hours they were given to prepare for the Kyuubi's arrival. That left the task of securing the defenses to Kakashi and his fellow ANBU captains.

The work was bitter and morale was low. And all the while, Kakashi wondered just what his sensei was planning to do. He knew that the Kyuubi was too powerful to be held by any ordinary seal. He also knew that, as with jutsu, the price of a seal rose with its power, and in the case of bijuu, said price usually involved human life.

About two hours later, word came that the Yondaime, his predecessor, and his sensei had devised a plan. It was heartening news to most, but Kakashi wondered who would actually be the one to do the deed. Although the thought sickened him, he hoped that Minato would not take the burden upon himself. Kushina was due any day now, and the timing could not have been worse.

Half an hour later, the hokage called together the clan heads and the ANBU captains outside of the tower. He looked completely exhausted, as if he had already fought a battle and had only won by the smallest of margins.

"We've come up with something," he said. "We're going to seal the Kyuubi." As soon as the words left his mouth, the clan heads erupted. Kakashi inwardly shook his head at their inane questions – Could he actually do that? Wasn't there a better way? If it failed, then what?

The Yondaime cut loudly through their voices. "In Suna, the Ichibi Shukaku was sealed into a teakettle, so we're going to use a similar object. I will need volunteers to hold the Kyuubi off long enough for me to complete the sealing. We should be able to intercept it before it even reaches the village, but we need to leave now."

Silence followed his words. Then, most of the ANBU stepped forward; most of the clan heads did not. If Minato was disappointed, he didn't show it. Instead, he thanked them all, then excused himself in order to make further preparations with Jiraya. As the Yondaime returned to the tower, the Sandaime took his place to give the volunteers instructions.

Kakashi had never seen Sarutobi look so old and troubled. He could count every line age had pressed upon the man's features, brought into stark contrast by the early morning half-light. Sarutobi took out his pipe, filled it carefully, and lit it, slowly puffing away as he regarded the lot of them.

"Listen carefully, because I only have time to go over this once. Once he gets within range, it will take the hokage five minutes to complete the sealing ritual. During this time, you have to keep the Kyuubi's attention. You will have Jiraya's assistance in this, but it will not be easy."

Kakashi inwardly frowned at these words and asked, "You won't be going with us, Sarutobi-sama?"

"No, I must assist the hokage in the ritual," the Sandaime replied. Though his expression was neutral, something in his dark eyes glittered sharply. "I will tell the hokage that we are ready. Meet at the gate in ten minutes." With that, he vanished into a cloud of smoke.

Ten minutes, Kakashi thought. Ten minutes before everything changes again. He was seized with a sudden, selfish desire to speak to his sensei, perhaps for the last time.

The old Kakashi would have crushed such a feeling under the heavy weight of rules and regulations, but it only took the present Kakashi a few seconds to reach the hokage's window. Once there he hesistated slightly, unsure if interrupting the Yondaime right now was really the smartest thing to do – and then stopped altogether, when he heard muffled voices.

Shamelessly, the jounin peered through the window. His sensei and Sarutobi were in the office, but they weren't alone. The Elders – Homura, Utatane, and Danzo – were with them. They were clearly arguing about something, but they spoke too quietly for him to hear. None of this really surprised Kakashi, who knew that, since day one of him taking office, the Elders had made several strong suggestions to his sensei about his role as hokage, all of which the Yondaime had blatantly ignored. The strange thing was that the hokage stayed mostly silent throughout this exchange, and Sarutobi seemed to be the one doing the arguing. The Sandaime had always kept his old teammates' advice in consideration during his tenure in office, and often urged his successor to do the same; now his stance had inexplicably reversed itself.

Kakashi had no idea what they were arguing about, only that it was probably pointless and a shameful waste of the precious time they had before the Kyuubi came within distance of Konoha. The Yondaime seemed to think so too, because within the next minute, he had kicked out all _four_ of them, before relocating to his desk. The blond sighed raggedly and ran both hands through his shaggy hair.

Finally, he turned to the window and said, "You can come in now."

Not having the decency to look at all guilty, Kakashi swung deftly into the office. "Yo."

"Come to say your goodbyes?"

The jounin looked away. "I wish I didn't have to. You won't reconsider, I guess?"

Minato replied flatly, "You know it's my responsibility to protect this village. Konoha's well-being has always come before my own."

"And before that of Kushina's and Naruto's?" It was a cheap shot, but somehow Kakashi felt obligated to bring it up.

The Yondaime smiled without humor. "Jiraya and Sarutobi have already taken that approach, so I'm afraid that it's not going to work. I'm determined to go through with this." Then his expression softened a bit, and he began to say, "Can I ask you to –"

"Of course I'll look after them, sensei!" Kakashi said, surprising himself with his own vehemence.

"Thank you Kakashi," Minato said. A breeze picked up from the open window, sweeping fine particulates of ash into the office. The hokage frowned as he looked out to the horizon – the sunrise was blood-red against the sky.

"I think we'd better get going."

* * *

The battle with Kyuubi passed by in one long, chaotic blur. No jutsu could stop the great beast, which had razed the earth and burned the forest barely a mile away from Konoha itself. But somehow, the Konoha-nin had managed to keep it from their village, though they paid for it with their lives.

Afterwards, Kakashi could only think of finding his sensei. Sarutobi and the Yondaime had separated from the main force early on, and Kakashi had lost sight of them ever since. Even when the Kyuubi's corporeal form had been sucked away by some unseen force, he had not been able to locate the source of the sealing.

Although he was half-dead with exhaustion, Kakashi pushed himself to stagger around in search of a goat-masked ANBU. Fortunately, Goat was still alive and mostly intact – he had been luckier than most – and was helping ferry the injured onto stretchers to be taken back to the village.

He turned when Kakashi approached and pushed his mask to the side, uncovering pale eyes surrounded by bulging veins. "Way ahead of you, senpai," he said, and began to scan the battlefield with his activated Byakugan.

After a few minutes, he deactivated his bloodline limit and looked back at Kakashi.

Trying hard to smother his anxiety and failing, the jounin asked, "Did you find him?"

Hyuuga Daiki – AKA "Goat" – held up a hand. "Hear me out entirely first, okay senpai? Yes, the hokage is alive, but he's not moving – probably unconscious. He's about a hundred meters that way, by the small outcropping. Sarutobi-sama is lying approximately three hundred meters west of him. Uzumaki Kushina is with him."

Another ANBU, overhearing this exchange, blurted out, "That red-haired bitch is dead? At least one good thing came of the Kyuubi."

Immediately Kakashi rounded upon him, furious, but Daiki stepped between them. "Senpai," he said quietly, "There's no time for this."

"I'll have your rank for that," the Copy-nin snarled before allowing Daiki to lead him away.

They searched for the Yondaime first. This decision left Kakashi with some feeling of guilt, especially in light of the promise he'd recently made, but ANBU was ANBU, and his first duty was to look after the hokage. They found Minato out cold and lying spread-eagled on the ground. Kakashi quickly knelt down to check his pulse.

"He's alive," he confirmed a moment later to Daiki.

The Hyuuga couldn't help but smile in relief. "I'll call for backup. We'll get him back to Konoha in no time."

Kakashi nodded and placed his hand on the ground in order to stand up. But instead of grass, he touched something cool and rough and looked down in surprise. Lying by the hokage's left hand was a small fox statue, carved from rough gray stone.

Daiki breathed sharply. "Is that what I think it is?"

Cautiously, Kakashi closed his fingers around the statue, lifted it up to eye level. It seemed harmless – ordinary stone. There was no chakra presence, nothing unusual about it. For a moment, the jounin found himself wondering if his sensei had actually succeeded in sealing the Kyuubi. Then, without thinking, he sent a pulse of his own chakra into the stone.

A horrifyingly sinister wave of chakra seeped out of the stone, sending waves of cold through both Konoha-nin. Kakashi dropped the statue as it was suddenly engulfed in blood-red flame. The grass around it caught on fire; Daiki quickly stamped it out before it could reach the Yondaime's prone form. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the chakra presence withdrew, and the thing at their feet was an ordinary statue once more.

"Well," Daiki said, after a rather pregnant pause, "I think that answers my question. What should we do with it, senpai?"

"I'll take it," Kakashi said grimly. "This is not something we can leave lying around." Gingerly, he picked up the statue once more and stuck it into his vest.

By then, other ANBU had arrived to take the hokage back to the village. Though he was loath to let Minato out of his sight, Kakashi turned back to the Hyuuga and said, "Let's go find the Sandaime and Uzumaki-san."

"Way ahead of you, senpai." With a quick display of hand seals, Daiki once again activated his Byakugan, scanning the area to their left. "What the fuck?" he exclaimed suddenly. "Who the fuck are they?"

"What is it?" Kakashi demanded, but Daiki was already on the move. "Dammit," the jounin said to himself, having no choice but to follow suit.

But whoever it was that Daiki saw, they were long gone by the time the two arrived on the scene. And so was the life from both of the crumpled forms lying before them.

"Oh no," Daiki breathed, covering his mouth as they approached. For an ANBU, the young Hyuuga was surprisingly sensitive, but Kakashi hardly had the heart to censure him over it. He could only think of Minato now, and of how thoroughly he'd failed him.

Kakashi bent down to check Sarutobi over. He was indeed dead, but the jounin was taken aback by the old man's expression – one of calm tranquility, even as his lips and chin were wet with blood. The body was still warm. If only they'd gotten here sooner… three lives had been lost by his hands, today.

"Senpai! Over here!" Daiki's shouting broke him out of his thoughts. The Hyuuga was kneeling next to Uzumaki Kushina. There was something in his arms.

* * *

"Wow," Naruto said flatly. "Lucky you found me."

Kakashi didn't respond, only drained the rest of his beer and thought about ordering another.

"So the Kyuubi was sealed in that statue."

"It's hard to confirm something like that. But I've never seen chakra of that color – or potency – before, or since."

Naruto frowned. "Didn't you see the end of my fight with the Shukaku?"

"No, I was out cold by then. Was its chakra like that too?"

"Uh, not exactly. Did you ever catch the guys that Hyuuga saw?"

The abrupt change in subject did not escape Kakashi's attention, but he decided to let it pass. "Daiki couldn't tell who they were, and we never found any traces of them at the scene. Sometimes he wonders if he even saw them. According to the medic-nin who looked her over, your mother died in childbirth."

"And the Sandaime?"

A shrug. "No one really knows what happened. Officially, the cause was illness. You know that."

"But that's not the truth."

Again, the jounin said nothing. Naruto looked away in disgust and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

"What did I tell you about smoking?" Kakashi said, making a grab for them, but his strength was gone, and his student was too quick. "Fuck," the jounin swore in an uncharacteristic loss of his composure. "If you suspect something, then stop pussying around and spit it out!"

Naruto's eyes narrowed into blue slits. "Don't tell me you haven't thought the same thing. The argument with the elders. Those people Daiki saw. The Sandaime sealed the Kyuubi, and Danzo got there first, erased all evidence of it. And now he holds that over my goddamn father's head whenever the bastard finally decides to act like he's got a spine!"

"_Do not insult the Yondaime in front of me!" _Kakashi roared, completely losing it and making the other patrons at the ramen-ya stare at him in surprise. Suddenly the jounin felt overwhelmed and increasingly light-headed, to the point where he thought he might faint…

"Naruto," he said, realizing too late, "What did you put in my food?"

"Your beer, actually," his student said, pulling out his wallet and setting a few bills on the counter. "While you were in the bathroom. Sakura will be here any second now, so I'm booking. I don't know if she'll take you back to the hospital or not, but hey, at least the meal's on me. Later, Kakashi-sensei." The jounin, his vision already darkening, didn't even manage to see his student leave before he passed out.

* * *

Temari swore as she dropped her keys. Shifting the paper bag cradled in her left arm up a bit, she bent down and groped around for them, unable to see the ground thanks to the groceries she was carrying.

By the time she had found them and somehow managed to get the right one into the lock, a steady stream of curses was flowing fluidly from her mouth. She was just in the middle of a particularly offensive series of portmanteaus ("shittits, assfucker, etc") when the door opened and she stumbled inside to see Uchiha Sasuke and her little brother sitting across from each other at the kitchen table and staring at her. They had the same stare – it was like Gaara Times Two, which almost made her drop the groceries.

Then she remembered that she was Temari and scowled. "What the hell are you guys looking at?"

Gaara turned back to their guest and shrugged, as if in apology. "My sister."

"Hn."

"Are all Uchihas this eloquent?" Temari said, rolling her eyes as she put the groceries away. "You guys want anything to drink?"

"Made a pot of coffee already," Gaara said. "You can have some if you want."

To no one's surprise, Sasuke ignored her entirely. Instead, he asked Gaara, "Why did you call me here?"

"The man who attacked me… you recognized something about him. Who is he?"

Sasuke's lips thinned into a flat line. His eyes were hard as coals. "And why should I tell you?"

_Well, this is awkward,_ Temari thought as she watched the scene. The coffeemaker give a little click to indicate that it was done brewing, so she took two mugs out of the cupboards and filled them, all the while keeping an eye on Sasuke. If the Uchiha made even the slightest motion of hostility toward Gaara, he would immediately find himself with a kunai up the ass, compliments of his oneechan.

"I apologize if I'm imposing," Gaara replied placidly, "But it's proving difficult to recover my attacker's body. There was a slight setback when your jounin-sensei had to send it to an alternate dimension in order to prevent you from using Amaterasu on my village."

Sasuke's expression darkened. "Are you implying that it's my fault that –"

"Yes," Gaara said, "I am implying that your lack of self-control has cost both of our villages important information. Now, we can either settle this diplomatically, or I can beat the answer out of you. Sharingan or no, I think you'll find it difficult to set sand on fire."

The Uchiha made no response, so Temari took the opportunity to ask, "Milk, Gaara?"

"Yes, please. Thank you," her little brother said as she set the mug before him.

"His said that his name was Deidara. He's a part of an organization called Akatsuki," Sasuke said suddenly. Temari snorted to herself – maybe the boy didn't like to be ignored. "They're a group made up of S-class missing-nin from all over the elemental countries. They mostly act as mercenaries, but lately there's been the rumor that they're on the lookout for the bijuu."

Putting two and two together, Gaara said, "Your brother's one of them."

Sasuke nodded. "I swore to kill that man, and I won't let anyone get in my way."

"You said that they're looking for bijuu? Do you know what their intentions are?" Temari asked.

"No. Like I said, it's just a rumor. Most of this information is from one of the Sannin. As far as I know, Deidara could have been acting on another village's orders."

"And attack Gaara, who just happens to be the jinchuuriki of the Ichibi? That's too convenient to be a coincidence."

"How many people are in this Akatsuki?" Gaara asked.

"I don't know. But it seems like everyone in it has a partner."

"Does that mean there's another one of them still in Suna?" Temari said, alarmed.

Gaara turned to the window. Outside, the streets bustled with activity as the villagers made repairs to the homes Shukaku had destroyed.

"If he's out there," the Kazekage said, surprising the others with his vehemence, "then I'll find him."

* * *

**Author's Note**: Sorry guys, my life is kind of brutal right now. I seem to have gotten back on a writing streak though, but there's no guarantee on how long it will last. Hopefully I don't blow myself up in lab before finishing the next chapter.


	7. Chapter 7

disclaimer: i don't own any part of naruto

**The Chain of Change**

_Chapter Seven  
_

* * *

It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and Naruto was sitting by himself at the bar of an abandoned pub somewhere in Suna's market district. The bartender, apparently unused to cerebral activity – much less serving customers – so early in the day, had poured him a pint, grunted something unintelligible, and retreated to a corner to read a skin mag.

That suited the blond fine. Talking with Kakashi had put him in a strange mood: being taken back to the day of his birth, to his mother's death and the Kyuubi's sealing… and of course the unsatisfying fact that the whole story raised more questions than it answered. There were too many inconsistencies, too many troubling details, but after so many years Naruto knew at least enough of his own mind to realize that he wouldn't, couldn't be the one to pick the facts apart to find the answers. So instead, he ordered another beer and tried to think of nothing. The bartender gave him a bit of a sour look as he put a fresh glass up to the tap – clearly, he had been hoping that his only customer would leave after his first drink.

_What the hell are you running a bar for if you don't want to serve anyone?_ The blond thought in disgust as the barkeep slid his drink to him before returning to his porn. He was suddenly reminded of a certain Sannin, and not in a good way.

He took a few sips and tried to not make a face. Suna was a great place in many ways, but its beer sucked. All the beer they served was of the light variety, which in itself he didn't have a problem with, but everything he'd tried had tasted funny, like it had a weird tang to it. This one was no exception, but he downed it anyway without complaining; the bartender seemed like he was itching for an excuse to throw him out.

The bell on the door jangled as someone else entered. Naruto didn't even bother to look up; he had no desire to see some other poor bastard who, like him, had been driven to alcoholism in the afternoon on a weekday. To his surprise, Gaara sat down next to him and ordered a glass of the same crappy beer.

Naruto stared at his friend. "What the fuck are you doing here?" he asked eloquently. "Don't you have a village to run?" It didn't surprise him that Gaara had somehow ditched his guards, but he thought that the redhead was more responsible than that.

The Kazekage fixed him with a cool look. "I was trying to find you, of course." Turning to the bartender he asked, "Do you have any hot sauce?"

"Trying to find me? Do you need something –" the blond began to say, but interrupted himself when he saw what the redhead was doing – "What the fuck is wrong with you? Man, that's so gross!"

Gaara swirled his glass around to mix in the liberal amount of hot sauce he'd just added to his beer. "Try some. It's good."

"Are you insane?" the Konoha-nin exclaimed, staring at the drink, which by now had turned a lurid orange. On the other hand, it wasn't so bad of a color, so maybe it wouldn't taste terrible either… He picked up the glass and gingerly took a sip. Then, eyes widening and, hardly believing himself, he took another. And another.

"Fuck! It's actually good! So that's how you guys manage to keep this shit down!"

"It's a Suna specialty," Gaara said with an amused smile. "Doubtlessly you've noticed that our beer has a… unique character."

Naruto snorted. "So why were you looking for me? I'm guessing it wasn't to show me how to make your beer drinkable – though I appreciate it, by the way."

"I wanted to ask your help with something," the Kazekage admitted.

"Sure. What is it?"

"I was talking to your teammate, the Uchiha. He recognized my attacker from the other day, so I asked him about it. He said that the man was a member of a secret organization known as Akatsuki."

"Akatsuki…" Naruto repeated, then frowned. "Where have I heard that name before?"

"Jiraya of the Sannin tries to keep an eye on their activities, or so I hear."

"That's right – Akatsuki is the group Itachi joined after he massacred his clan. I remember hearing that he killed Orochimaru for the position." The blond fumbled through his pockets and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. "I also remember hearing that they were interested in the bijuu. Is that why that guy went after you?"

"I'm not sure," Gaara admitted. "It's too much a coincidence to ignore, but it seemed like his goal was to cause a disaster in the village."

"While the first diplomatic mission from Konoha to arrive since your appointment as Kazekage was present in Suna. That's convenient."

"I'd thought of the possibility, but what could Akatsuki have to gain by starting a war between Konoha and Suna?"

"Fuck if I know," Naruto shrugged, tapping out a cigarette and lighting it with a snap of his fingers. "Go ask them."

"I intend to," Gaara said, making the blond look up in surprise. "Apparently, the Akatsuki operate in pairs. Since your team only took out one…"

"Then there must be another one of those fuckers still hanging around here." A wicked smile formed on Naruto's features. "And you want me to help you find him?"

* * *

"Ow! What was that for?" Kakashi exclaimed, rubbing the spot on his arm where Sakura had poked him with a kunai. He was in bed, albeit back at Team Seven's temporary apartment and not at the hospital.

"Just making sure you're not a clone," the kunoichi replied calmly. Even though so far the jounin had not attempted to escape, his student was hardly going to overlook the possibility. "Here, drink this." She handed her sensei a steaming cup of foul-smelling liquid.

Kakashi took one sniff and scowled through his mask. "I don't want it."

"It'll help with the chakra exhaustion," Sakura explained patiently, as if to a small and petulant child. "Drink it."

"It smells like wet socks," the jounin protested. "I don't want it."

"That's too bad," his student replied heartlessly, turning away and pretending to leave. "I guess you'll just have to stay in bed for the next week then."

Some muscle in Kakashi's face spasmed as he considered the prospect of seven more days of forced inactivity. Holding his breath, he drank the tea in one swift gulp, then made the appropriate gagging noises until Sakura brought him a glass of water, which he downed just as quickly.

"Now rest," the kunoichi told him, taking the glass away and setting it on the bedside table. "If you're good, you may be recovered by tomorrow." She fixed him with a stern glare, as if reminding him of his past transgressions.

The jounin sank pathetically back under his sheets. "Can I have my books back now?" he asked in a small voice.

"No."

Sasuke looked up from the scroll he was reading as Sakura came out into the kitchen, shutting the bedroom door behind her. "How is he?"

His teammate rolled her eyes. "Acting like a four-year-old, of course."

"Hn." It was the closest thing the Uchiha got to chuckling.

"So what did Gaara want to talk to you about?" Sakura asked, sitting down at the table.

"Akatsuki," he replied neutrally.

"What about them?" the kunoichi asked slowly, trying to get a feel for her teammate's mood. She knew that the subject was a touchy one with him.

"He asked what I knew. I told him."

"Did he say anything about you using the Mangekyo Sharingan?"

Sasuke's expression darkened. "Are you going to start on me too?"

Sakura twisted her hands together in her lap, but she was familiar with the Uchiha's habits and did not back down. "Sasuke, it was really dangerous. You could have killed a lot of innocent people, and Kakashi-sensei had to put himself in the hospital to stop you."

"I knew what I was doing," he grit out through clenched teeth. "The man had information that I needed. It has nothing to do with you, or Gaara, or Kakashi."

"Like hell it doesn't," Sakura replied, her eyes flashing in anger. Her sudden vehemence made Sasuke flinch back, although only for a moment. "You don't live in a vacuum, you idiot! Your actions affect other people. For god's sake we're supposed to be a team!"

The last sentence did the trick of setting him off. "A team?" Sasuke snarled. "I tried that, remember? We both did, and look where it got us!"

Sakura's expression hardened. Even now, he couldn't let it go. "This isn't about Naruto."

Her teammate said nothing.

"Sasuke, you got what you wanted from him, remember? It's not like your eyes are going to change back if you try to move on."

The Uchiha glared at her. "I don't forgive traitors," he said coldly, with a finality that indicated their conversation was over. He made a point of ignoring her as he returned to reading his scroll.

* * *

The afternoon sun beat down on the wind-cracked rooftops of Suna, sending up lazy shimmers of heat. Despite this, the villagers went on with their lives, shaded by the buildings that lined intentionally narrow streets. The same buildings prevented most of them from noticing the two figures situated on top of one of the taller apartment complexes, clad in the traditional sand-colored cloaks of Suna-nin and surveying the people below them like circling hawks.

Naruto was seated, lotus-style, with his eyes closed. The heat from the sun was unbearable and the hot roof made it feel like his ass was going to burn off, but somehow he managed to ignore it enough to access the desert's natural chakra. Not that it made him feel any cooler, with the dry heat now burning through his chakra coils. Next to him, Gaara was annoyingly composed; the bastard wasn't even sweating.

"Thirty-one jounin-level signatures," the blond said finally, relaxing his position and wiping the perspiration from his face. Slitted amber eyes regarded the Kazekage. "You know, there are probably better ways to do this. I'm not exactly a chakra-sensing type."

Gaara ignored him. "Did any of them feel strange?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? All chakra is strange!"

"All right. How many high-jounin?"

Naruto groaned. "Dammit, I'm running out of natural chakra here!"

"Can't you just summon the old toad and have him collect it for you?" Gaara asked, raising an eyebrow.

The blond rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Actually, I kinda pissed him off, along with most of the other toad summons…"

"Surprise surprise," the Kazekage muttered, feeling a headache coming on.

Naruto ignored him and closed his eyes again. "Okay, there's Temari… found Kakashi… some dude I don't recognize with some genin… whoa, wait."

"What is it?"

"Could be nothing," the blond shrugged. "It's just that his chakra feels… I dunno how to describe it…"

Gaara gave his friend a flat stare. "Strange?"

The blond scowled. "Sometimes I really hate you." His body seemed to tense as he flung his senses out as far as they would reach. "Okay… got him! He's at the edge of the village, near the main gate."

His friend walked up to the edge of the roof and held out a hand. Sand streamed up to create a floating platform, which he stepped onto. Meanwhile, Naruto was just standing up, wondering how burned his ass was going to be. He didn't get a chance to contemplate for too long however, as a thin coil of sand whipped around his leg, lifting him bodily from the roof and onto the platform before Gaara and his sand sped through the village. The Kazekage set them down on top of the wall a few hundred feet away from Suna's tiered gates. As soon as he did so, Naruto toppled back gratefully against the rock. Even though he was a wind user, he did not enjoy flying in Gaara's moving sand trap.

Gaara nudged him with his foot. "Can you find him?"

"Give me a minute, you sadist," the blond muttered, sitting back up with a groan. He crossed his legs and placed his hands together, focusing his breathing until he stood on the cusp between living and dead. Slowly, as the warmth of natural chakra flowed into him, he reached out, searching for the presence he had felt earlier – a jounin-level ninja with an incomplete chakra signature, as if part of him were missing, or smothered.

"Where are you, you elusive bastard… there we go – Gaara, he's headed out of the village."

They dashed to the gates, where a Suna-nin wearing the traditional sand-colored cloak was handing his documents to a guard.

"That's Yura," Gaara said, recognizing him. "He's a member of my council."

"Well, whoever he is, there's something off about him," Naruto retorted, the feeling of wrongness about the man becoming stronger as they neared him. "I'm sure of it, now that we're closer."

"Naruto, he's been loyal to Sunagakure since before I was born."

The Konoha-nin shrugged. "Can't hurt to follow him." Gaara made a noise of irritation, but did not disagree.

Under cover of sand, the two breached the canyon walls that surrounded the village and proceeded into the open desert. Yura moved at a hurried pace across the sand, but they were able to catch up easily enough. However, the council member's cloak made him difficult to track, and once or twice Naruto had to tap back into sage mode to find him again. Sunagakure was quickly vanishing into the distance thanks to the clip at which they were going, but their quarry made no indication of stopping or even slowing down. Finally, after about fifteen minutes of this, the pair decided to hang back and observe, with Gaara being unwilling to stray too far from his village.

"Dammit, where the fuck is he going? Did you send him out on a mission?" Naruto said, watching the dot that was Yura shrink into the distance.

"Council members don't take mission. I thought he might have a personal errand to one of the smaller towns, but he's headed for the middle of nowhere," Gaara replied, clearly annoyed. "We're on a wild goose chase."

"Yeah," Naruto agreed, looking around at the endless, lifeless expanse of desert. "Either that, or it's some kind of elaborate trap –"

The pair looked at each other, horrified that they hadn't considered the possibility sooner. Immediately Gaara clenched his hands together, bringing the sand around them to form a protective sphere. It was just in time too, because something bit deeply into the walls of the sphere, sending tremors along the inside of their temporary shield.

"Fuck!" Naruto exclaimed unhelpfully. "What the fuck is –"

The force impacted again, and where it hit, the sand rippled and crumbled away to reveal the harsh light of the desert.

"It feels like the chakra is being drained out of my sand," Gaara remarked, far too calmly, as he used both hands in a struggle to close up the hole. "Ready yourself, Naruto – I can't hold this together for much longer."

A third impact, and Gaara's barrier crumbled away into pieces, only to reveal an array of Naruto clones. Between them they held a whirling, shrieking disk of chakra, which they immediately hurled at –

Hoshigaki Kisame brought Samehada up in one swift movement and sliced through the Rasenshuriken. Despite the sword's chakra-eating abilities, the elemental jutsu exploded into a wild cyclone upon being sliced in half, blowing up vicious amounts of sand. "Shit!" the missing-nin exclaimed, shielding his face with his weapon to prevent it from being eroded away.

A flutter of robes indicated that Itachi had joined his side. "They are escaping," the Uchiha pointed out calmly, not the least bit helpful.

"I knew we couldn't depend on that puppet bastard," Kisame growled. "Lure them out, my ass. How the fuck are we supposed to find them again in this?"

Itachi stared out into the desert. "I will find them," he said. The three tomoes of the Sharingan spun lazily in his eyes.

* * *

"Fuck! I swear that was Itachi!" Naruto was shouting as Gaara sped them through the desert. "Why the fuck are we running? Turn this thing around!"

"I thought you said that it was a trap," Gaara pointed out mildly. "We are escaping the trap."

"Are you crazy?" the blond practically screeched. "We can't go back to Suna – if they follow us, they'll tear the village to the ground."

Years of exposure to Naruto had lent the Kazekage some immunity to his shouting. "I have no intention of going back to my village," he replied. "I am simply luring them in the way they lured us. There is no telling how many traps they have already planted on that piece of desert. I merely seek to level the playing field."

"Oh," Naruto said, snapping his jaw shut, suddenly feeling quite stupid. The sand platform was slowing. He could see the pair of Akatsuki closing the distance: the dark features of Itachi, Kisame's strange blue skin. "Listen," he told Gaara, "The Uchiha uses genjutsu. Don't ever, ever look into his eyes. I don't know what his intentions are, but if he catches you with his Sharingan, then it's all over."

"Noted," his friend said. "Here they come."

* * *

Chiyo picked through the crate of persimmons with a frown on her wrinkled face. None of the fruit the vendor was selling seemed to be very ripe. Deciding to forgo them this time, she turned her attention to the display of vegetables.

There was a rustle of cloth as someone passed behind her. The old lady's grocery bag dropped from nerveless fingers.

"…Sasori?"

* * *

"What do you want from us?"

In a bare stretch of desert, two pairs of shinobi faced each other. One was clad in the earth-colored cloaks of Sunagakure; the other wore black robes embellished with red clouds. They stood some fifty feet apart like reflections in a strange mirror, the setting sun painting their shadows long and dark across the sand.

Kisame reached behind his back from Samehada's scaled hilt. His face bore a harsh rictus lined with jagged teeth in response to the Kazekage's question. "We're here for the Ichibi… and the Kyuubi."

"Gaara!" Naruto exclaimed, glancing at his friend in mock surprise. "You never told me you were the Jyuubi container!"

"Cease this foolishness, Naruto," Itachi said tonelessly. "Haven't you discovered the truth yet?"

"That I'm a jinchuukiri? It might be possible – if the Kyuubi weren't already fucking sealed somewhere else!" Naruto snarled. A strange pressure grew in his head as he ignored his own words and stared the Uchiha down. Suddenly, everything from the past few days was bearing down on him, and he was sick of talking, sick of the implications that had been tossed around and lay rattling in his brain. Some primal part of him screamed for the need of violence to expel it all.

It was a stupid idea; he would have had a much better chance against Kisame, but the blond closed the space between himself and Itachi in less than a second. The Uchiha was ready for it, brushing Naruto's lightning-fast strikes harmlessly aside with one hand. Meanwhile the Mist-nin, figuring that dibs had already been called on his partner, surged forward toward Gaara with Samehada in tow, only to be blocked by a transient wall of sand.

"Your taijutsu has gotten sloppy," Itachi noted idly as they broke apart from the exchange. Naruto tilted his head to one side, a savage grin forming on his features. Combined with his reptilian eyes, the whole effect was quite sinister.

"Maybe," he said, his fingers forming a familiar-looking cross-shaped seal. "But taijutsu's never been my strong point."

"Oh," the Uchiha said, a small smile quirking his lips. "What a scary face." He didn't have a chance to say anything else after that though, as three Naruto clones suddenly popped into existence. The first went for a direct attack, using the quick, vicious attacks characteristic of the blond's bastardized taijutsu form to momentarily drive Itachi to the defensive. The second leapt into the air, allowing for the third to grab his leg and swing him around, propelling him over the missing-nin's head. As the clone flipped over Itachi's head, he reached out and grabbed the back of his robe, slamming the Uchiha toward the ground. Itachi allowed the downward momentum to carry him as he flipped onto his hands, his legs arcing up to kick the first clone.

The moment his foot made contact, the second clone let the kunai in his hands fly. Itachi, caught mid-stride, was unable to twist out of the way, and the attack caught him full-on. The exploding tags attached to the kunai detonated, and in the resulting smoke and sand the missing-nin's figure dissolved into a flock of crows. Before the corvids even had a chance to get airborne, a Rasenshuriken sliced through the dust and towards the real Itachi. It was only due to the Sharingan that the Uchiha was able to dodge in time.

When the air had cleared, the two combatants stood facing each other once more.

"I didn't expect you to catch onto the clone so quickly," Itachi said. The entire left side of his robe had been torn away by Naruto's attack and lay in tatters of red and black. Calmly, the missing-nin reached up with one hand to undo the front of the robe and removed it from his shoulders, letting the wind carry it away. Now exposed, it was clear that his person had also not escape unscathed; his left arm was bloody from the shoulder down.

The blond stared hard at his opponent. "Sending Kage Bunshin out at the start of battle to scope out your opponent – you taught me that, didn't you?"

Itachi said nothing. He took a step back with his left foot and held out the opposite hand, palm facing upwards and fingers quirked toward himself – the classic signal for "come and get it."

What followed was a display of ninjutsu that lit up the desert in primitive fireworks. Both combatants shared an affinity for fire, and since Naruto wasn't going to try his standard repertoire of wind jutsu against its opposing element and there was no water around for Itachi to draw on, so it was katon techniques that the two fell back on.

In retrospect, Naruto realized that he should have paid more attention to the old adage warning against fighting fire with fire, because apparently doing so caused explosions. Large ones. Which was unfortunate, because they threw great plumes of sand into the air, obscuring everything to the point where the blond couldn't even see his own hand held in front of his face. Of course, Itachi felt none of this disadvantage, thanks to his magical all-knowing Uchiha dojutsu.

But Naruto could fight blind. He had done it before. Keeping his eyes open in this kind of situation was only going to distract him, so he closed them and stood still. There wasn't enough time to restore his sage chakra, but with what was left of it he could cast out his senses and locate Itachi.

The Uchiha came up from behind him, lightning-fast, releasing a jet of fireballs. Naruto twisted around and countered with his own katon technique, belatedly realizing that Itachi had hidden kunai in the flames. He managed to dodge most of them, but one caught him in the shoulder, lodging itself into the muscle there. The blond reached up to pull it out. His hand touched paper.

The exploding tag detonated immediately, and only Naruto's quick reflexes saved him from being blown apart, allowing him to cast the kunai away at the last second. Even so, the force of the explosion threw him back against the desert like a rag doll, cracking his head solidly against the ground.

Dizzily, the blond forced himself upright. He felt the last of his sage chakra leave him, and with its departure came the nausea and pain from his head injury. There was no time to think about it; Itachi had wasted no time following up his initial attack, and, sensing the movement through the sand-clouded air, Naruto whirled around just in time to roll away from a snaking dragon of fire. Itachi rematerialized before him, blue flame licking up his arm as he struck at the blond with what appeared to be a katon-based version of the Chidori. Naruto dodged to the side and blocked the next strike with a kunai, but the weapon immediately began to melt from the heat of the fire, and the skin of his hand began to blister. He sidestepped and simultaneously dropped the weight from behind the blade, hoping to catch his opponent off-balance, but Itachi simply redirected his momentum to plant one hand on the ground and sweep Naruto's legs out from under him.

The blond fell back, and before he could regain his footing, a hand gripped his neck and slammed him bodily into the ground. Itachi stood above him, staring down dispassionately.

"I'm disappointed in you," he said.

"Fuck you," Naruto bit back. Itachi squeezed gently, and stars began to appear in the blond's vision.

"Answer my question: have you discovered the truth yet?"

"The truth about what, you sick fuck?!" Naruto practically screamed, frustrated by the missing-nin's continuous cryptic questioning. Answering his anger, the wind pulsed around him, and Itachi had to hold up his other arm to his face to prevent it from being shredded. Blood splattered into the air, but the Uchiha did not let go.

"Hasn't your time in ROOT taught you anything?" Itachi asked, looking straight at the blond as his eyes bled into the Mangekyo Sharingan.

* * *

_"My name is Danzo," the one-eyed man said. "I'll be training you from now on."_

_"But my dad said that he'd train me," Naruto protested, looking up at the stone-like countenance of his visitor. "He said I could enter the academy once I turned eight."_

_"And you still can, Naruto-kun," the one-eyed man assured him. The small child flinched back at being addressed so personally, feeling like a trapped animal. "However, your father is a very busy man, so he sent me to teach you in his place."_

_Naruto didn't like anything about the man in front of him. He didn't like the way his words sounded. It was as if he had been taken from outside and suddenly put into a small room, and now someone was slowly shutting the door on him. But his father had taught him about responsibility, and duty, so he nodded at Danzo and followed him out._

* * *

_"Please," Naruto begged, trying to shut out the sound of his own voice screaming at him. "Please, just let him go. I won't do it again, I promise!"_

_The masked ROOT-nin gave no response, only picked up the iron brand from where it lay smothered in glowing coals. He then turned to Naruto's Kage Bunshin, bound by seals that would not allow it to vanish, and applied the brand to the clone's side, eliciting fresh cries of anguish._

_When they finally allowed the clone to dispel, Naruto almost passed out from the pain. He retched until nothing came up anymore, then fell unconscious in a pathetic little heap in the ROOT prison._

_As he came to, he noticed Danzo standing before him, staring at him in contempt. "Ninja of Konoha do not reveal S-Class secrets," the scarred veteran said. "Not even to their own family."_

* * *

**_His mind was filled with heat and fire. He felt the slow burn of the heavens across his skin, the glittering stars and distant moon sliding past him as his soul left his body and splintered: ten became one, became two… became nine, and suddenly the heat receded, leading him back into the aching coldness of the physical world._**

**_The heat receded, but was not gone. The dregs of it boiled and festered in his mind, became feelings for rage and hatred and destruction. Wherever his paws tread, he left behind naught but dust. Wherever his great tails lashed, mountains toppled and oceans evaporated from the heat. For years it seemed that he wandered this way, an unstoppable, unfathomable force of nature…_**

**_Then one day, above the cries of a desperate village, he felt once more the burn of the stars as some greater force plucked him from his hard-won body. Half his soul was taken, growing dull and dead when it split off and bound itself to stone. The other half lay forgotten, in between the realm of the living and the dead. He struggled, only a shadow of his former self, crawling like the unevolved ooze, finding new life and clinging to it. Young life: incipient, unformed. A perfect vessel to receive his gifts of violence, and hatred._**

* * *

The transition back to reality was instantaneous. Upon the touch of foreign memories upon his mind, Naruto felt Tsukoyomi shatter and Itachi reel back, as if physically stunned. Not understanding what had just transpired but grateful for it, the blond took advantage of the Uchiha's momentary weakness to down him in a swift kick to the legs, then follow up with a pin similar to the one that had moments ago been used on himself.

Naruto held out his left hand, gathering a densely-spinning mass of blue chakra. Itachi stared impassively at the forming Rasengan, the Mangekyo not leaving his eyes.

"Do you understand now?"

"I understand that I should kill you," the blond said quietly, feeling as if all the heat had burned his body out from within, leaving only a husk that played at being human. The only feeling that remained was a deep and unquenchable anger that spread heat from his core all the way up to his fingertips. Small scarlet flames sparked to life on his skin, licked down his arm and fed into the Rasengan in his hand, quickly turning blue into red.

The change went unnoticed by Naruto but did not escape Itachi, who said, "That would be unwise, as my partner would then kill your friend." His expression was inscrutable. Naruto turned the information over in his head, Gaara's memory slowly coming back to him with his own humanity. Almost reluctantly, the red chakra receded from his hand and the flames on his skin died away.

"You're bluffing." It seemed like the right thing to say.

"Do you care to find out?"

The thought of Gaara lying broken and battered at the hands of the Mist-nin brought on a fresh wave of anger, and Naruto brought the sphere of red spinning downward. However, before he was able to complete his strike, Kisame appeared out of nowhere, sweeping Samehada in a protective arc over his partner and causing the jutsu to explode. All three fighters were blown back, along with great quantities of sand.

The impact of hitting the ground once again jarred Naruto to his senses. He regained his feet, pulsing wind chakra around his body to drive the sand away.

"Gaara! Where the fuck are you?" he called, although he had a feeling that it was a useless effort. There was no answer from the Kazekage, but Naruto felt someone move behind him. Swinging around, he brought up a leg to connect with Kisame's arm, knocking Samehada out of his grip. The missing-nin reeled back from the blow, and Naruto was somewhat comforted to notice that he had not escaped unscathed from his fight with Gaara; Kisame seemed to be favoring one leg over the other, and his entire person was bloody and battered-looking.

The two exchanged a round of viciously powerful taijutsu before separating. Kisame spat out blood and a tooth that the blond had knocked free with a hit to the jaw. "You're good," the missing-nin said grudgingly.

"Where's Gaara?" Naruto demanded, feeling a bit like a broken record as he formed the seals for a katon jutsu with his left hand. The right reached into his weapons pouch.

"Why ask for him? Ain't I good enough for you?" the shark-like man leered. Naruto responded by exhaling a massive snake of flame, circling Kisame as he tried to dodge out of the way and striking him in the side. Unfortunately, this knocked him closer to Samehada. Naruto tried to kick the sword away, but Kisame was too quick, grabbing the handle as he rolled to his feet. The missing-nin swung at him, scoring the skin off his left arm as he flipped back, a second too late.

Samehada made a screeching noise, and Kisame grinned. "It likes the taste of you."

The blond flinched back, a sense of wrongness washing over him. Though he might have imagined it, he thought that he had felt the sword siphoning off his chakra. The violation stirred up the embers in his belly, and suddenly he felt a deep loathing for the alien object that had not only stolen away some of his life force, but even now hungered for more.

He began to mold elemental chakra in his hand, the process somewhat slowed by the depletion of his reserves. Then he tightened his hand into a fist, forcing the energy upon itself, compressing it until he had a marble-sized sphere that was a deep ruby in color. With the other hand, he formed the seals for a futon jutsu that whipped up a large whirlwind in the missing-nin's direction.

Kisame held up his sword, intending for it to consume the cyclone, which it did with admirable efficiency. He did not expect, however, for Naruto to reach out and slap his hand to Samehada's scaled surface. The blond quickly drew his hand away on contact, as if burned, but the dense marble of chakra remained, burning red-hot. Then the metal around it began to melt. It melted even as Samehada consumed, for the sword could not eat fast enough to prevent the potent chakra from eating through itself.

Realizing what was happening to his beloved sword, Kisame lashed out at his opponent even as the blond angled a strike to his jaw. Both fighters reeled back from the ferocity of the exchange, but Kisame recovered first. His jaw had clearly been dislocated, but the Mist-nin popped it brutally back into place with his shoulder. Naruto was worse off, having felt his ribs crack under the force of the blow, while blood slowly oozed from where his skin had been eroded off by the sword.

His chakra marble hadn't been enough to completely destroy Kisame's monster sword, but it had done a considerable amount of damage. Samehada seemed smaller, and was curled up into itself, as if trying to physically escape from what had hurt it. However, there was enough left of the weapon for the Mist-nin to wield. Kisame swung the thing over his head, the scaled blade extending out from the centripetal force, then brought it crashing down towards his opponent. Naruto, feeling as though his lungs were going to burst with every breath he took, threw himself to the side in order to avoid the blow.

_This is bad,_ the blond found himself thinking as the sword clipped the air above him. He reached into his chakra reserves and scraped bottom; he had nothing but dregs now. Whatever was left in him would only be good for one strike. He grabbed a kunai from his pouch, careful to conceal the almost comically small weapon in his hand.

Then Kisame was standing over him, stomping down hard on the blond's already injured chest. Already broken bones gave further with a sickening crunch, and Naruto almost blacking out from the explosion of pain that it caused. He barely clung on to the waking world as the missing-nin raised Samehada up like an executioner's axe for the final blow. Almost detachedly, the blond noted that nearly a third of the sword had melted away and that any edge it might have once held was clearly gone. For an insane moment he wondered if Kisame planned to bludgeon him to death with the thing.

There was no time to dwell on the matter. Naruto channeled the last of his chakra through the kunai in his hand. The weapon had not been made for such purposes and the metal began to vibrate violently from the sudden infusion of wind chakra. Hardly noticing how the weapon was shredding his own hand, he fed it chakra until he had none left, then let it fly.

It caught his opponent completely by surprise. The kunai flew true, slicing cleanly through Kisame's arm, just above the elbow: a clean, perfect cut. The severed appendage dropped to the ground, spurting blood. Kisame howled and clutched his newly formed stump in agony, dropping his sword in the process.

Somehow, Naruto rose to his feet and staggered over to the missing-nin, taking care to kick what remained of Samehada well out of reach. There was one last kunai in his pouch. He pulled it out.

Some shinobi are able to weather the most traumatizing of events, but evidently Kisame was not one of them. The Mist-nin raged and swore at him as he approached, his words completely unintelligible and coming out in such a condensed stream it almost seemed like gibbering. Blood flecking his lips and teeth, and whatever clarity his reptilian eyes might have held was completely gone as they rolled wildly in their sockets. It was strange to think that a single blow had reduced the man to this state, raging and desperate.

Then Naruto was standing right before him, and Kisame's words suddenly began to make sense, though most of it consisted of cursing. "You won't save your pathetic little jinchuuriki buddy," the missing-nin told him finally, pink-tinged spittle running from his mouth. "Sasori's already got him squared away."

"What the fuck do you care?" Naruto said tonelessly. He was very tired, and there was nothing but contempt in him for the man writhing on the ground before him. Every breath was like it had been taken through barbed wire, but he felt oddly contented, almost soothed by the battle's result.

"You're going to die anyway."

He raised his arm and stabbed down with all his might, and Hoshigaki Kisame toppled backwards.

The last of his strength gone, Naruto fell to his knees before his dead opponent, feeling his consciousness ebbing away. He never noticed that the weapon lodged between Kisame's eyes had three prongs.


	8. Chapter 8

disclaimer: i don't own this shit

also, none of this has been proofread or even thought about too much. there are probably errors everywhere

* * *

**The Chain of Change**

_Chapter Eight_

* * *

Minato was at his desk when he felt the summons. The ROOT infiltrates had all been arrested and taken to the ANBU Interrogation Force, but progress had quickly been halted when it was discovered that the curse seal placed on the prisoners' tongues rendered them immune to the traditional means of questioning. At the moment, only the Yamanaka clan jutsus had shown any usefulness, but Inoichi was only one person, and there dozens of ROOT to get through.

To make matters worse, they were operating on a time limit. No one had any idea how often ROOT checked on its own. Not _too_ often, it seemed, in order to prevent their ANBU squadmates from becoming suspicious, but, from what little information Inoichi had managed to uncover, it couldn't have been less than once every few days. Contact was mostly made in the evenings, after normal working hours, so the Interrogation Force had at least a few hours before Danzo was tipped off about the situation. That was assuming he didn't have any fingers on the ANBU Minato had assigned to the investigation. They needed more intelligence, and quickly.

And so it was that the foremost seals authority in the village – Minato himself – was stuck poring over the ridiculously complicated arrays that Danzo (or one of his cronies) had cooked up. The Yondaime had already contacted Jiraya about the situation via toad, but there was little chance that the Sannin would be back in time to be of any use.

It was like someone had hooked their thumb into a corner of his consciousness and given a little yank. Immediately he knew that one of his kunai had been activated, and not soon after, which. To his horror, he realized it was the one he'd given Naruto, all those years ago, when his son had graduated from the Academy. Naruto had beamed at him from underneath his shining new hitae-ite, and when the three-pronged weapon exchanged hands, Minato had felt an intense mix of worry and pride, emotions so potent his chest ached from the strain of containing them. In all that time, the kunai had never left his son's weapons pouch; had never been thrown, or even dropped. Until now.

The curse seal lay forgotten on his desk as Minato flashed away in a blur of yellow and white.

The Hiraishin left him in the middle of a desert.

Minato was used to being dropped off in strange places as his signature kunai made their way around the elemental countries. But it was damned inconvenient to be turned on your head in the middle of a crisis, so he did the first thing experience had taught him – look down.

The face of Hoshigaki Kisame, frozen in a ritcus of death, gaped back at him with all the charm of a dead fish. Blood, so dark it was almost black, oozed from his gills and the weapon buried up to its hilt between his glassy, sightless eyes.

Next to the missing-nin, Naruto lay in a crumpled heap on the ground. Quickly, Minato knelt by his son's body, taking care not to move him too much as he searched for a pulse. He almost cried out in relief when he found one – faint and unsteady, but at least it was theer.

The relief was quickly overtaken by fear. Naruto was clearly in a bad way; from what the Yondaime could see, his entire side was covered in blood, and he was breathing in a shallow way that couldn't have been healthy. But Minato had no medical training whatsoever – hell, he didn't even know how to give CPR – and he would probably do more harm than good if he tried to help his son. He also had no idea where the hell they were. Given the climate, probably not far from Suna, but there was no telling which way the city was.

"Come on, Minato, think!" he said outloud, tugging at his hair with one hand. He could Hiraishin back to Konoha, but there was no way they would reach Naruto in time. If only there were another…

"Kakashi!" he exclaimed, suddenly remembering that his one-time student also happened to possess one of his special kunai. After the mission resulting in Obito's death, the jounin had asked him to keep it as a reminder of the lessons concerning friendship and teamwork he'd learned that day. It only took Minato to locate it, mentally. And suddenly, he knew where he was.

* * *

Kakashi almost leapt out of his bed in shock when the Yondaime appeared. Belatedly, the jounin recalled that he kept one of his former sensei's weapons in his utility pouch, which was slung over the back of a chair by the bed. He was just about to come up with a bizarre and inappropriate greeting when he caught a glimpse of Minato's face and instantly snapped to attention.

"Sensei, what's wrong?"

"It's Naruto." Briefly, the older blond outlined the situation, leaving out the details in interest of time. "My clone is with him, but he needs a medic. Where's Sakura?"

"She and Sasuke left to get dinner." They would never find her in time; there were seven restaurants on this block alone. Kakashi pulled himself out of bed. A wave of dizziness hit him in his hastiness to stand up; he steadied himself against the bedpost, legs almost buckling from under him, and waited for it to pass. He didn't feel particularly better or worse than before, but ruminations over his recovery could wait. "I'll go to the hospital, tell them to send medics out to meet us at the gate." He was already wrenching open the window as he spoke.

Ten minutes later, the two Konoha-nin were speeding back out into the desert with three medics in tow. Thankfully, the medic-nin of Suna were just as well trained as the ones in Konoha; it had taken them less than a minute to collect what they needed from the hospital, including a folding stretcher that one of them now carried strapped to his back. Without the requisite chakra capacity to make a clone, Kakashi had left a note to his two remaining students explaining the situation tacked to the apartment door, although not without wincing a little at the thought of Sakura reaming him a new one for this latest escapade.

According to his father, Naruto was some fifteen miles away from Suna's outskirts. Driven by haste, the covered ten miles in half an hour: no distance at all, to a conditioned ninja, but Kakashi had to strain like a genin to keep up. Miraculously, his legs held steady, and he silently reminded himself to thank Sakura later for her dedicated nursing.

Sometime after the eleventh mile, Minato suddenly shoved something in his hands and said, "Something's happened," before flashing away in a streak of yellow. The jounin realized that the clone assigned to watch over Naruto must have somehow been dispelled. But even if it were Akatsuki, Kakashi had every faith that the Yondaime would be able to handle it. He slipped the three-pronged weapon into his vest and doubled his pace.

* * *

Itachi might have been the sort of prodigy that appeared once in a generation, but Namikaze Minato was arguably the most talented ninja the Leaf had ever produced. As soon as his feet hit the ground, Minato threw another two kunai to surround his opponent. Less than a second later, he had the Uchiha pinned to the ground, a third blade at his throat. A little pressure behind the weapon produced a thin trickle of blood against the pale skin.

"In honor of your past service," the Yondaime said, taking care not to look at the missing-nin's eyes, "I will give you thirty seconds to explain what you are doing here before I slit your throat."

The Uchiha made no attempt to move. When he spoke, he answered in short, clipped tones.

"Naruto and I fought. Kisame intervened. It looks like Naruto killed him." He paused, and Minato made no hesitation to dig the blade in a little deeper. It was a futile move; Itachi was not the kind of man to be intimidated, even when he was at another's mercy. Instead, he said, almost clinically, "You have been blind, Hokage-sama."

"What do you mean?" The blond's voice was calm. For all anyone knew, they could have been conversing in a pub over a few pints of beer.

"You have been blind," Itachi reiterated, "Especially in the past, but now you can no longer afford to be so willing to overlook Danzo's transgression. Your ANBU have exposed only the very surface of what he has done."

Minato made no reply, waiting for the missing-nin to say more. He wasn't disappointed.

"Go to the residential sector. In the east side you will find a storage yard owned by one Yama Hisano. Look in unit 14C."

The Yondaime narrowed his eyes into blue slits. "I trust you about as much as any other traitor, Itachi. Which means, not at all."

"Go alone, or take Hatake-san only. The ANBU have been compromised for years. You are running short on time. Madara has begun to collect the bijuu."

"And why," Minato said quietly, "should I believe anything you say?"

But Itachi pressed on, talking over him. "We were sent by Akatsuki to capture the Ichibi and the Kyuubi." The missing-nin's voice seemed to be growing weaker. "The Ichibi is now with Sasori of the Red Sand. I leave Naruto-kun in your…"

"What are you implying?" The blond snarled, his hand gripping the kunai so tightly that the knuckles blanched. But there was no response. Itachi seemed to have trailed off mid-sentence, sagging back against the ground. A moment later, his body seized up, then suddenly jerked back, chest compressing as all of the air went out of his lungs. Then he was still. Pretty soon it was clear that he was dead, but that was not all. Minato watched as the missing-nin's features melted away to reveal the corpse of a ninja he didn't recognize.

"Fuck," he said out loud. "I should have seen it. Fucking Shoten no jutsu."

A quiet, choking laugh came from behind him. Minato turned to see his son, who had somehow woken up and managed to drag himself into an upright position against Kisame's dead body. "I thought you said that swearing is the sign of a weak mind," Naruto said, leaning back with a short gasp of pain.

The Yondaime was immediately at his side, supporting his head with one arm. "Don't try to speak. Help is on its way."

Naruto shook his head. "They took Gaara," he persisted. "It was my fault." Then he, blinked in confusion and suddenly seemed to forget what he was saying. A second later he turned to the side and retched.

"Naruto!" Minato cried in alarm, but his son didn't appear to hear him, and instead collapsed back against Kisame's corpse, head lolling to one side. Minato pressed a hand to his forehead; it was unnaturally warm. Swearing at himself for overlooking the possibility of heat stroke, the older blond quickly formed the seals for a doton jutsu, raising three walls of earth around Naruto's prone form. Then he stripped off his hokage robe and draped it over the structure as a crude shade.

The younger blond's lips moved, and his father realized that he was muttering something under his breath.

"A shinobi gives himself to his village..." Over and over again he repeated this mantra, and Minato felt his stomach drop a little further with every iteration. The words were horrifyingly familiar; only an hour ago, he had heard them uttered by the ROOT operative being interrogated by Morino Ibiki.

Kakashi and the Suna-nin arrived five minutes later. The medics immediately surrounded Naruto and, in no time at all, had agreed on a diagnosis of heat stroke. One of the set about lowering his body temperature while the other two started to rehydrate him. After this was done, they moved onto his injuries, taping his ribs and bandaging up his superficial wounds.

One of the medic-nin came up to Minato and said, "He's going to be just fine, Hokage-sama."

"Thank you," the older blond said, feeling, above all else, a great sense of relief. Naruto was going to be okay. Everything was going to be okay. He watched as the Suna-nin carefully lifted his son onto the stretcher, strapping him down so he could be carried securely.

But it was as if his mind were discontent with the sudden lack of stress, because it immediately latched onto the next item on the list of things for Minato to worry about. Itachi's words replayed in his head, quietly at first, then louder and more insistent, mixing with the phrases he'd heard Naruto utter barely ten minutes ago. For someone who was said to be insane, the missing-nin said things that made a whole lot of sense. And though he desperately wanted to remain by the side of his only offspring, he had more reason than ever to need to crack that seal, and quickly.

Kakashi must have caught something in his expression, because the jounin exclaimed, "You're not thinking of _leaving_, are you?"

Feeling like a total bastard, he said, "Naruto's safe now, and I have something I need to do."

His former student practically exploded. "What could possibly be more important than your son? For fuck's sake, he almost died fighting Shukaku, and now this happens… what do you think he'll do when he comes to his senses and realizes that you've left him?"

Minato was taken aback by the vehemence of this statement; it had been a while since he'd seen Kakashi so angry about anything. Vaguely some part of him realized that the jounin's relationship with Naruto must have improved exponentially in order for him to react this way. The rest of him was fixated on what his former student had said.

"'Almost died fighting Shukaku'?"

"Naruto single-handedly took down the Kazekage when he was possessed by the Ichibi. He was bed-ridden for days afterwards. But you should know this already – Gaara sent you a message about it."

"Did he?" _Strike three, Danzo. I'm going to have you hanged for treason the first chance I get._ "It must have gotten lost in the mail then. And where were you when this happened?"

The jounin stared flatly back at him. "The Uchiha's genetic disposition toward mental illness asserted itself at a bad time. I was trying to stop Sasuke from burning down Suna."

Minato didn't really know how to respond to that. So he settled for telling Kakashi the truth.

"I have arrested fort-three members of ANBU who are suspected of having ties to ROOT. I don't think Danzo is aware of the fact that I'm onto his organization just yet, but doubtlessly he will be in a few hours' time. I need to crack the seal placed on his operatives before then and expose him before he catches on and skips town."

"Can't you just hand the seal over to someone else? We have people in ANBU trained for that sort of thing," the jounin pointed out.

"The thing is insanely complicated. Listen, Kakashi, the Kazekage has been taken by an Akatsuki member named Sasori of the Red Sand. Make sure to let the Suna council know. Normally, I would ask you to do everything in your power to help Suna recover him, but the organization may also be after Naruto. It's unlikely that they'll try again so soon, but at least have Sakura watch over him until he recovers. I leave it up to you to decide what steps to take in helping rescue the Kazekage. Keep my kunai to contact me by."

"And when Naruto wakes up?" Kakashi's expression was dubious.

"Let me know the minute it happens." Minato rubbed the back of his neck. He knew that he was leaving the jounin in an impossible situation, but there was nothing for it now. He settled for saying, "Kakashi, I think I know what happened to Naruto. I think Danzo got to him."

Clearly taken aback, Kakashi opened his mouth to ask another question, but before he could form a single coherent word, the Yondaime was gone. The jounin looked over at his student, who the medics were applying cold packs to in preparation for the trek back across the desert, and buried his head in his hands in frustration.

"Dammit, Minato-sensei!"

* * *

Temari and Kankuro were waiting for them at the gate. Sasuke and Sakura were with them. Both kunoichi were livid; if their companions were equally angry, they didn't show it. It was also painfully obvious to Kakashi from the way they were standing apart that his team and the remaining Sand Siblings were on less than friendly terms.

"Where's Gaara?" Temari demanded as they approached. "He's been gone for hours – is that Naruto? What the hell happened?"

"Stay clear, Temari-sama," one of the medic-nin warned as they brought Naruto's stretcher into the village itself. "He's been hurt badly."

"Kakashi-sensei." Sakura turned to him as the medics bore Naruto away. "What's going on?"

"I'll explain later," the jounin said wearily. "You should go look after you teammate. I need to speak with Kankuro and Temari." Sakura flushed a little at the subtle rebuke, but sped off toward the hospital without another word.

Kakashi turned to his remaining student and the Sand Siblings. "Gaara's been taken by an Akatsuki member known as Sasori of the Red Sand." Seeing Temari and Kankuro stiffen at the mention of the name, he surmised, "You know this person."

It was Kankuro who spoke. "We should go see Old Lady Chiyo."

* * *

Sakura was running out of patience. Not only were the medic-nin keeping her out of the loop on Naruto's condition, but she had further been consigned to a bedside position, forbidden to do anything herself. Protests concerning how she was also a medic, a highly-trained one at that, seemed to fall upon deaf ears. It was only the knowledge that it wouldn't do Naruto any favors that kept her from strangling them.

At least the blond's hyperthermia was beginning to subside. The medic-nin had finally been able to regulate his temperature, and he had been hooked up to IV fluids to prevent him from vomiting. But his wounds looked bad – especially his shoulder, which appeared as though it had been giving a few rubs with a giant cheese grater. The Suna medics had identified five cracked ribs, some of them broken in multiple places, but miraculously none of them seemed to have pierced his lungs.

They sedated him in order to work on his injuries, but after half an hour he seemed to regain enough lucidity to glance over at her. His lips moved faintly, and she went to his side.

"Sakura…" he said hoarsely, staring up at her. For a moment, she saw a different Naruto – the sweet, outgoing boy who had helped her through her insecurities about being a kunoichi from a civilian family, who had stopped Sasuke from being too hard on her or Ino from teasing her about her apparent uselessness. She felt as if someone had given her heart a short, tight squeeze. Where had that Naruto gone? Why had he left her with the monster who had sent her home crying practically every day of training?

_Get a hold of yourself_, she told herself, viciously forcing the thoughts away. _Those days are gone, and you're stronger now._ "I'm here," she said to her teammate, voice steady.

"What happened?" he rasped, throat still dry from dehydration. "I thought my father was here..."

"Kakashi-sensei was the one who brought you here," Sakura said.

"Gaara!" he exclaimed suddenly, then gave way to coughing. Quickly, Sakura poured him a glass of water and held it up to his lips so he could drink. "Little sips," she warned, "or you'll throw it all back up."

"They've got Gaara," Naruto continued as soon as she withdrew the glass. "I've got to go find him."

"His brother and sister are already on it," Sakura told him. "They know who's taken him. They'll bring him back soon."

"They don't know where to look," the blond insisted. "I can find him. I need to get out of here."

He was ranting, practically delusional, and in obviously no position to leave. Sakura motioned to a medic, who turned up the dial on his pain medicine. The kunoichi stayed by his side, stroking his hair as he gradually fell asleep.

He woke up about an hour later and asked for more water. His eyes were clearer, and the delirium seemed to have mostly cleared away. Once he finished drinking, he asked Sakura for his clothes.

"You're not going anywhere," she said, preempting him.

"I need to find Gaara," came the stubborn reply.

"You can barely move. You wouldn't get very far before collapsing again," Sakura pointed out, trying to appeal to reason -- not that logic ever got very far with either of her teammates, when they were in this sort of mood.

Naruto stared hard at her. "Do you think I give a shit what happens to me? It's my fault Gaara's been captured by some psycho in the first place!"

"And it's exactly this kind of attitude that will compromise his rescue!" Sakura snapped. Her tone startled him, and he blinked at her, biting back whatever he had planned to say next. Feeling a little guilty about being so sharp with him, she added in a softer voice, "Temari and Kankuro have already gone after the Akatsuki member who has Gaara. You know they're both jounin. They know what they're doing." She didn't mention that Sasuke had gone with them, or that Kakashi was currently in the process of trying to convince someone who had tried to assassinate him at first sight to help with the rescue effort.

Her teammate shook his head. "I can't just sit here and do nothing!"

"Then here's something to do," Sakura replied, handing him a familiar-looking weapon. "Kakashi left this here for you. Contact your father. Let him know you're okay."

* * *

Naruto turned the kunai over in his hands, confused. What did his father have to do with any of this? Typically there was no need for a Konoha-nin to report to the Hokage mid-mission, and besides, Gaara had already sent him a message by hawk. The blond traced the characters that formed the Hiraishin seal with a finger, the symbols that formed the basis for one of the most powerful jutsu in existence. Without realizing it, he smiled faintly as his eyes ran over the clause that Minato had added to the seal when he'd been born. In effect, it served the same purpose as adding one's name to a summoning contract -- it allowed Naruto to use the technique, if he ever chose to learn it. However, Naruto had never been very interested in using the jutsu. He wanted to escape from the shadow of his father, not be bound by it.

Then it dawned on him. He'd used up all his kunai in the fight against Kisame – that must have included the one his father had given him when he'd graduate from the Academy, which meant…

"That bastard!" he said out loud. "It wasn't a fucking hallucination! He was actually here!" And, of course, gone again, now that his safety had been guaranteed. Probably some paperwork that needed filling out, trade agreements that needed signing – no time to stay an hour with his only child while he was in the hospital.

_Why the hell are you letting this get to you?_ Naruto snarled at himself, furious that such a trivial piece of neglect had affected him to such a degree. He forced the feelings down, although they left a wake of bitterness in their departure.

"Naruto." It was Sakura. For a moment, he'd forgotten that she was even there. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he lied. "Did Kakashi tell you where he got this?"

The kunoichi nodded. "From the Hokage, of course. He was the one who found you. I think he had something important to take care of back in Konoha though, so he left you with Kakashi-sensei."

_Who, conveniently, isn't here either._ At least he had a good excuse for leaving. Naruto scowled. He was in no mood to deal with Minato at present.

"You know," he said, turning to Sakura, "I think I'm pretty tired. I'll talk to my father later."

His teammate's eyes narrowed. "Just a second ago you couldn't wait to get out of bed."

"Just a second ago I felt more awake," Naruto retorted.

"Stop making up excuses and let your father know you're okay," Sakura bit back. "He's probably really worried."

The blond's temper was quickly fraying. "How the hell would you know that? He obviously doesn't seem too worried, seeing as he sent you to watch over me."

Ignoring the thinly veiled insult to herself, she rounded upon him. "For once, could you stop acting like a complete bastard and think about the situation? Your father is the Hokage. Yeah, it sucks that you've been left here by him, but he probably feels miserable about it too! Quit whining and talk to him!"

In a sudden, vicious movement, Naruto sat up and flung the kunai into the far side of his room with all the strength he could manage. The blade embedded itself an inch and a half into the drywall, vibrating with the force of its impact. He ignored Sakura's shocked expression.

"You know what, you've convinced me. I'll go see him now. Let's hope I don't fuck this up and die on the way there." It probably wasn't the right time or place to try something that he only knew how to do in theory, but Naruto was incensed and not thinking straight. For a moment, he was focused in the deepest concentration he'd ever managed to achieve in his life. Then, a second later, he was gone in a blur of yellow.

* * *

**Notes**

Before I get any enraged cries of "what the fuck, Naruto knew how to do Hiraishin no Jutsu and didn't use it??" I'd like to point out that he's never actually tried it before, and it's the kind of technique that could probably fuck you over pretty well if you got it wrong. Plus he only carries the one kunai with him.

Also, I'm currently working 60 hour weeks. Do not expect updates to happen with lightning speed. I'm shooting for once a month here.


	9. Chapter 9

disclaimer: i don't own any of this

and again, nothing has been proofread. also, guys, please don't flame me for this chapter.

* * *

**The Chain of Change**

_Chapter Nine_

* * *

For once, Itachi had been mistaken about something: the storage yard was owned by a Yama Hisako, not Hisano. It was a trivial detail, but somehow it made Minato feel better about the entire situation. To err is human, and Itachi's humanity had been called into question all too many times before.

Danzo's curse seal had taken him about thirty minutes to crack. Not a long time, to be sure, but the Yondaime could probably look at about ninety-five percent of the seals in existence and figure out how they worked in less than a minute. Danzo's had included a lot of excess crap – garbage clauses, gibberish – a good way to disguise a seal's true purpose.

So now the Interrogation Force was happily going at it with their recently unmuted prisoners, and Minato had maybe an hour left of freedom. He'd gotten one of the office assistants to arrange a meeting with the veteran about reestablishing the Konoha police force, since decimated by the Uchiha massacre, something that Danzo had been gunning for since day one of Konoha post-Uchiha. The Yondaime smiled briefly at the thought; he'd ordered the aide to sabotage the meeting with every possible bureaucratic detail he could come up with.

Yama Hisako-not-Hisano's storage yard was a modestly-sized one, with nine elongated warehouses lined up in a neat stack. Each warehouse was divided up into three sections, and each section was further segmented into another three units. There was no visible security except for a wire fence, some ten feet high, surrounding the perimeter.

Considering that he had just waltzed into this piece of supposedly private property in broad daylight without running into another human being, Minato had a feeling that whoever was leasing space here and expecting it to be secure was getting ripped off. The units themselves were built from badly-poured cement blocks, likely whatever a construction company had left over from contracting work and sold at a steep discount. Identifying numbers were stenciled on with white paint, but worn away with time and neglect into illegibility, and had never been repainted.

Still, it was easy to find 18C. All he had to do was count and go off the few readable numbers that remained. Pretty soon he was standing in front of the padlocked door of the unit in interest, trying to think of the best course of action. It would be an easy thing to pick the lock, but if this unit truly housed all of Danzo's deepest, darkest secrets, there was going to be more to contend with than just a simple mechanical device. He couldn't sense any chakra coming from behind the door, but then again, he wasn't exactly skilled in that department. Furthermore, seals were perfectly capable of activation without chakra input – his own Hiraishin no Jutsu was proof that particular principle.

And there was another concern – that this entire thing was a trap. Itachi had told him to come alone after all, and in the unlikely event that the missing-nin had bothered to sneak into Konoha for the sole purpose of rigging a storage unit in the civilian sector, Minato had no backup to call upon if something did go wrong. Not that he was too worried – if it didn't manage to knock him out in the space of about ten milliseconds, he would be able to Hiraishin away to the safety of his office.

"Forget it," Minato said under his breath, sick of mulling over the possibilities. Sometimes you just had to fuck everything and go for it. Granted, this was actually Kushina's philosophy and not his, but…

He shattered the padlock with one expertly-timed chakra strike and jiggled it off the door. Then, all senses on high alert, he cracked the door open.

Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't this. The small, dingy room before him was packed to the rafters with stacks of what looked like ancient newspapers. Closer inspection indicated that they were actually old copies of the Konoha Sun-Times, the most notorious tabloid circulating in the village. And it looked like the Yondaime had just stumbled upon the dumping ground for its back issues.

A freaking wild goose chase. Disgusted, Minato shut the door, not bothering to replace the broken lock. No one in their right mind would want to steal this refuse anyway, he reasoned. Preparing to head back to Hokage Tower, he pulled on the Hiraishin seal – and froze, feeling the seal on one of the kunai in his pouch activate. Almost instantaneously, someone collided into him, bowling him over and into the door, which opened behind him to dump them both unceremoniously into stacks of bad journalism.

Minato was back on his feet in a second, a weapon at the ready as he faced whoever it was that just managed to hijack his most famous technique, ready to do him or her a whole world of harm –

His son rolled onto his back and groaned.

"Fuck… am I dead?"

The Yondaime was rendered speechless.

Apparently, Naruto suffered from no such ailment. A colorful string of words issued from his mouth, each phrase more provocative than the last. For a brief, irrational second, the older blond wondered how his son had even _heard_ of half the things he was cursing. Then reason kicked in, along with the function of his vocal chords.

"Naruto! What are you doing here?"

His son glared balefully at him through slitted blue eyes. "Sakura said I should let you know that I'm awake. Hey, guess what? I'm awake."

"Did you just –"

"Use your technique? Yeah. The landing kind of sucks. I'm surprised that you don't fall on your ass all the time."

"How did you even learn it? You never let me teach it to you!" Minato exclaimed.

Naruto ignored the question, electing instead to lever himself upright on his good hand. After a little shakiness, he managed to stand, shrugging off whatever help his father tried to give him. He looked around.

"What a dump. The hell are you doing here?"

"Hey, don't change the –"

"Are those tabloids?" Naruto plucked the topmost periodical from one of the piles. This particular issue had a blown-up picture of himself on the front, standing with a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of beer dangling from the other. The background showed a party, held in a building possibly of Suna origin, judging from its curved sandstone walls. The photo had obviously been taken on the sly; Naruto was turned away, chatting up a hot blonde who could have been Temari with her hair down and in a strapless dress. The title screamed in huge black print: "Hokage's son brings more shame to Konoha with foreign binges and orgies!"

"You know," the younger blond said casually, "If you wanted to know what I've been up to these past few years, you could've just asked."

Minato felt himself turning red. "I didn't come here to read the tabloids. And shouldn't you be in bed?"

"I dunno," Naruto said. "Couldn't sleep. For some reason I had this dream of you being there, then leaving as soon as the nurses said I wasn't going to die."

The Yondaime winced inwardly. "I had something to do." The excuse sounded flimsy and callous as it issued from his mouth.

His son gave the stacks of back issues another sweep. "Yeah, apparently you did." Then he turned back to his father, and his expression was more cold than angry. "Look, I don't give a shit what you do with your time. You made it pretty clear early on that you didn't have time for me. So don't lead me on like this – pretending you care enough to find me in Suna, then clearing out at the first opportunity."

"That's not what I meant to do –"

"You spent the past three years ignoring me."

"Yes, but it's not like I wanted –"

"Anyway, I've found you, said what I needed to say, and now I need to find Gaara –"

"For fuck's sake!" the Yondaime burst out, loudly and abruptly, "Will you just give me a minute to explain?"

Naruto stopped mid-sentence, clearly surprised. Minato rarely swore, and almost never raised his voice. For a second, it looked as though the younger blond was about to give an equally vicious reply, but then he held back, and his expression became neutral, guarded.

"Fine," he said in a quiet voice. "Explain, then."

Minato sucked in a breath, having never expected that the situation would go anywhere beyond a shouting match. But now with the ball in his court, he suddenly no longer knew what to do with it. He looked up to see his son's eyes upon him, uncharacteristically calm, and finally understood – Naruto was actually giving him a chance.

So the Yondaime faced his son and said, "I found out a few things while you were away. Were you ever in ROOT?"

The range of emotions that passed over Naruto's features in response to that question varied from anger to relief to self-loathing, all of them flickering away in less than a second. But Minato caught them, saw every one, and realized that in them was reflected everything Danzo put his son through, every terrible thing that Naruto had borne in equally terrible silence. So he didn't need an audible reply, a concrete answer, in order for the most potent anger he'd ever experienced in his life threatened to overtake him, although he could not tell if it were directed toward Danzo, or himself.

"Naruto," the Yondaime said, and much to his surprise his voice was steady. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

The younger blond made a derisive noise. At his sides, his hands were clenched into white-knuckled fists with such force that the right one began to bleed again, even through the bandages.

"Naruto, you can talk to me." Minato's voice was impossibly gentle in spite of the murderous feelings that were boiling up inside him.

"No, I really can't," Naruto snarled. Then, he repeated, in a voice choked more with shame than anger, "I really can't."

Minato remembered the curse seal, and could barely restrain himself from flashing to wherever the hell the bastard was and killing him on the spot.

It must have shown on his face, because Naruto glanced at him and shook his head. "Danzo isn't that stupid. It's all me. My fault. My weakness." There was a pause, and then the younger blond turned away. "I have to get back to Suna. I have to find Gaara."

"Kakashi will take care of it," Minato said. "There isn't much you can do in your current condition."

His son rounded upon him. "Don't you think I know that? But I can't sit here and do fuckall while some psycho's got him. I have to _try_. I owe Gaara at least that much!"

"Naruto, we need to talk about this."

The younger blond laughed quietly. It was a bitter sound, completely devoid of humor. "No, we don't. It's a little late now, don't you think?"

"Listen," Minato said, in as sharp a tone as anyone had ever heard from him, "None of this is your fault. None of it. If you want to blame anyone, blame me."

His son looked at him, almost pityingly. "What the hell do you think I've been trying to do? It should be easy, because you –"

"I never noticed," the Yondaime finished simply, refusing to flinch away from fact. "I never noticed it, even though I'm your father, and I'm supposed to know what happens to you, and care about it. Naruto, I'm so sorry."

Naruto's expression softened, and for a moment he seemed almost sad. "If only you had told me that earlier. Anyway. I need to go now."

It didn't look as though he was going to expound any further on the subject of Danzo. Minato realized this, and though it made him both dejected and angry, he decided to back off. But with respect to his badly injured son hauling ass back to look for Gaara…

"You need to stay here," the Yondaime said firmly. "Kakashi and your teammates are perfectly capable of handling Gaara's retrieval. I am giving you an order as the Hokage to remain in Konoha for the time being."

"You bastard," Naruto snarled. "What the fuck makes you think I'm going to listen to anything you say?"

"Because," Minato said, hating himself as he did, "It's treason if you don't."

For a minute, he was afraid his son was going to leave regardless. But maybe the fact that he was a ninja of Konoha still meant something to him, or maybe he was just too used to following orders; Naruto glared seethingly at him, but stayed put.

Minato expelled a silent sigh of relief. "Okay, let's get you back to the hospital."

"No."

"You're in no condition to be standing, much less –"

"I'm in no condition to be sitting around doing nothing while my friend is possibly being tortured and killed as we speak!" Naruto paused for a moment, taking a few breaths to calm himself. "What," he asked finally, "were you doing here? Is it at least less dangerous than running around the desert?"

The Yondaime grimaced. It was an abrupt shift in subject, and away from what he would really like to be discussing with his son, but at least this was a way to talk about Danzo without Naruto running away from him. "Last night, I purged all the ROOT members in ANBU that I could uncover. But it's not enough to get Danzo put away. I need to find information to hold against him before he becomes aware of the situation."

Naruto regarded him skeptically. "Last night? He's probably long gone."

"Not according to the spies I have tailing him. Last I checked, he was in a meeting that I specifically arranged for him."

"And you're digging through this shit because…"

"A bad lead," Minato admitted. "Supposedly, this is where Danzo keeps all his stuff. But as you can see, there's nothing here."

"Did you check under the floor?" his son asked. "Danzo ran most of ROOT underground… go figure."

The Yondaime blinked at him. "No, I just assumed that this was the lousy tip I thought it would be."

Naruto grunted and closed his eyes. "Get out of here then. I'm going to clear this place."

"For Kami's sake, please go back to the hospital. You have chakra exhaustion!" Minato protested, but, unsurprisingly, he got no response. Naruto had seated himself against a stack of tabloids and his breathing grew slower and slower as his body became perfectly still. The topmost few issues on the stacks began to shake as a phantom breeze picked up in the room, and then suddenly Minato found himself assaulted by an army of tabloids as the breeze became a strong gust that directed every scrap of paper into the air and out of the door.

"Naruto…" the Yondaime said, trying to sound angry but not really able to put himself up to it. He reached behind his head to pull away the double sheet that caught against the back of his neck, frowning at the blown-up image of Tsunade's most prominent assets displayed there. Quickly, he shoved it out of sight, before his son could notice.

Too late, apparently. "You should ask her out," Naruto commented, opening one ancient amber eye to regard him. "Then you could do more than just stare at 'em."

"Naruto!" the older blond said sharply, crumpling up the paper as quickly as he could and tossing it in a corner. "For Kami's sake, she's twice my age!" he burst out, unable to stop himself.

"Yeah, but she looks like she's twenty. If she's not a cougar, then I'm a freaking –"

"Naruto!" his father said again, louder this time, before his face could go red. "Mention Tsunade again, and I'll Hiraishin you back to the hospital, where you can tell her about what you think of her. In person."

His son glowered. Then, "I think I'm sitting on it, actually."

"What?"

"There's a breeze blowing against my ass."

"Move."

Naruto obliged him, uncovering a portion of the floor. Barely noticeable, faint lines traced the shape of a large square in the stone. Minato rapped a kunai against it.

"It doesn't sound hollow," his son noted.

The older blond frowned. "It's probably a seal. I bet Danzo has to wipe his blood on it to get it to open."

Naruto stared. "Can't we open it by force?"

"It'll probably explode." Minato rested his palm on the floor and channeled a bit of chakra into it. Immediately, a sealing array, outlined in thick black ink, appeared in the cool grey stone. The Yondaime held it there for a minute, regarding the patterns with narrowed blue eyes. Then he lifted his hand to pull a scrap of blank paper from his vest. With the other hand, he retrieved a brush and a bottle of ink from his cloak pockets, and in the next few seconds he had drawn his own array on the paper. Then he placed the newly-created seal on the floor over the existing one and drew on his chakra once more.

Minato's seal flared to life, the characters outlined in vivid blue, and Danzo's seal materialized beneath it, although more sluggishly. Slowly, the dark lines of Danzo's seal seemed to leech away from the stone and into the paper above it, until Minato's seal was black with ink.

The Yondaime's face quirked into a satisfied smile. He rapped the hidden trapdoor with his fist, and it sprang open obediently, revealing stairs that wound down into darkness.

"Heh. Amateur."

* * *

Gaara was dreaming.

It took him a moment to realize it, because Gaara rarely slept long enough in order for his subconscious to take over. But the scene before him could not have possibly been constructed in the real world.

He was standing in an enormous sewer. Its walls were gray, damp-looking, and lined with some kind of scum. His feet were ankle-deep in water, and a steady dripping sound echoed down the length of the tunnel. A the very end was an enormous grate, partitioning off a part of the tunnel. The area beyond it appeared to be dark and empty at first glance, but as Gaara focused on it and caught a flash of movement, he realized that there was something inside.

He walked forward. Though his feet made sloshing sounds in the water, he did not feel the wetness of it. The dripping sound grew fainter, until it was barely a whisper of noise. Gaara continued until he stood directly before the grate. He lay his hands on it, his touch meeting cool metal, rough with patches of rust.

Naruto stood before him. Only it wasn't actually Naruto, couldn't have been, this being a dream and all. The blond grinned at him and reached out to grasp one of the bars with his own hand.

"Yo, Gaara," he said. "Some fix you've gotten yourself into, eh."

"Frankly, I'm not sure what is worse," Gaara replied blandly. "The fact that I've been captured, or the fact that my subconscious takes the form of my psychotic best friend."

"Hey," the blond protested, "Words can hurt, you know."

Gaara snorted. "Where's Shukaku? Wouldn't he be more appropriate for this?"

His friend smiled, and it was all wickedness and sharp edges. "I sent him away for the time being. He's not going to be around for much longer, anyway." Then he leaned forward and whispered conspiringly, "I'm not actually your subconscious, you know. In fact, I'm not part of you at all."

"Great. Give me a few days to figure that one out."

Naruto chuckled and shook his head. "I'm afraid you don't have a few days. Maybe not even a few hours left. Have you given any thought of what's going to happen to me?"

Gaara quirked a nonexistent eyebrow at his friend. "Typical," he said. "I'm going to die, and the first thing you think of is yourself."

"I never said you were going to die. In fact, you better not, or this entire thing will be a waste." The blond actually seemed a little disgruntled by the suggestion. "Anyway, when you wake up, you should tell Kakashi and company to haul ass back to Konoha."

"And why should I do that?" the Kazekage asked levelly. "As far as I'm concerned, you're a figment of my imagination."

His friend looked up at him, and Gaara started involuntarily. Naruto's eyes were neither his normal blue or sage-amber. Instead, they had taken on a scarlet hue, and the shadows flickering over them made it seem as if fires had been kindled in their depths. And Gaara realized, with a sort of cold certainty, that the figure before him was not in any way his friend.

"You should let them know," Not-Naruto told him. "Because I don't plan on dying either."

* * *

"You never really answered my question."

Naruto frowned at his father, taking care to step away from a suspicious-looking area of the stairs. They had already triggered two traps in their descent to Danzo's lair, one of them taking a neat chunk out of the wall, and very nearly a neat chunk out of his head. "I told you, I don't want to talk about it."

"No, I meant the one about the Hiraishin no Jutsu. How did you learn it, if I didn't teach it to you?"

"I snuck into your study and read your scrolls on it," Naruto said. "When I was, like, ten."

"And you learned it then?" Minato said, astonished.

"Hah, no way," his son replied. "I was just a stupid kid. But I memorized what was on it. I didn't actually understand how to do it until last year, and I never tried it until today."

"No way," his father said. "Your memory is terrible."

"Only for stupid shit, like history and stuff," Naruto replied dismissively. "And besides, you only wrote down how to do the jutsu, and not how to make the seals. That's the hard part."

"Is that why you never wanted me to teach it to you?"

There was silence for a minute, then the younger blond let out a quiet, pained noise. His father glanced over at him, startled, and saw that he had partially collapsed against the wall, hand grasping at the stone for support, head bowed.

"Naruto?"

"Fuck," his son said, barely audible, his breathing growing uneven. Then he repeated the expletive, only louder, and beat his fist against the wall. Something flickered red in the gloominess, but vanished just as quickly – blood, probably, Minato noted with growing concern. "It's so easy," he murmured, half to himself. "Fuck, why is it always so easy?"

Then he straightened and said in a low voice, "Everything I just told you was a lie. Danzo taught it to me. He had stolen the scrolls from your library and copied them." He said this all very rapidly, mechanically, as if reading from a script. "I was supposed to learn it and use it when the time was right."

Minato staggered back, as if dealt a physical blow by the words. Coldness welled up in his stomach, and he felt as though all thought had suddenly been siphoned from his brain. But his mouth was still on automatic. "Danzo was training you… to kill me?"

"He never said anything to that effect," his son replied. "But he knew that I hated you. He gave me the tools to act upon it." Tonelessly, he added, "I realized he was setting me up. If I took you out, the village would have me executed and Danzo would have turned a blind eye."

"Kami…" the older blond breathed. "_That's_ why you left."

"I didn't know what else to do. There's some part of me, even now, that still hates you," Naruto told him unflinchingly. "Even though I know that Danzo was playing me, the entire time."

The two stood in silence for a time, neither knowing what else to say. Water dripped from somewhere, making a clear, hollow noise. Minato reached out and steadied himself against the wall. The stone was shockingly cold against his skin, and he almost pulled his hand away, but forced it to remain, and he focused on the sensation. It was a reminder that he was still in the real world, that this wasn't a dream.

Finally, Naruto spoke. "There's no point in going over the shit Danzo told me to do."

"The hell there isn't!" his father exclaimed. "After what you just told me, do you really expect me to just leave it alone?"

Naruto shook his head. "Right now, the important thing is to nail the bastard."

It was exactly the same excuse Minato had used to leave Suna to begin with. The older blond shook his head in frustration, but he felt like he had to concede. There came a point where the elephants became either too large or too numerous to be swept safely under the rug. He was pretty sure they'd passed that point a long time ago. They had an entire zoo in the room, and he had no idea what to do with it.

"Later, then," he said. "Promise me, that we'll talk about this later."

His son stared at him. "You know I won't do that."

"Naruto. Please." Minato could not keep the desperation from creeping into his voice.

The younger blond's lips curled up to snarl something back, but with a visible struggle, he stopped himself. "Fine," he said, after a time. "Fine. You win. But I make the call as to when."

They resumed their descent. The stairwell wound twice more before opening into a largish chamber. A massive desk replete with the appropriate office supplies took up one side of the room. The two remaining walls were lined with shelves stuffed to the brim with scrolls.

Naruto crossed to the desk and lit the two nearby lamps with a fire jutsu, then bent over the papers scattered there. They were all in some kind of cipher, written in the veteran's unsteady hand. It wasn't a code that he recognized.

"Son of a bitch."

The younger blond turned to see his father with a scroll unwound in his hands. Minato's expression was a mixture of fury and disgust. "He's got copies of everything. Logs of all the meetings the Hokage has ever had – dating back to when Sarutobi was in his prime. Keys to every cipher I've ever used." The Yondaime walked further along the shelves, pausing at a stack of scrolls outline in black. "Son of a bitch," he repeated. "S-class secrets. All here."

Naruto snorted. "Did you expect any less? The man is trying to take over the village." He began rummaging through the desk drawers. They turned up bottles of ink, blank scrolls, a multitude of brushes, paperweights… "Danzo's a paranoid bastard. I bet you he stashed the really juicy stuff."

"I think what he has out in the open here is incriminating enough," his father protested. "I could have him hanged for possessing just one of these scrolls."

"Five ryu says I turn up something even better."

"Don't be a wiseass, Naruto," his father admonished. "Make it ten."

The younger blond grinned and pulled out all of the drawers, stacking them on top of one another. Then he reached into one of the spaces where the drawers fit and fiddled around with something. There was a click, and Naruto pulled out a small wooden box.

"Hidden against the back of the desk," he said cheerfully to his father's stare. "One of the drawers was shorter than the others. Pay up."

Minato scowled and reached inside his cloak for his wallet. "I guess I owe you allowance for the past three years, or something."

Naruto set the box down on the desk and pried the top open. He lifted up the topmost article – an envelope – and read what was written on it briefly before handing it to his father.

"It's addressed to you," he said. "From the Sandaime."

Minato took it and opened it.

_My dear friend_, it read.

_ By the time you read this, I will be dead. First and foremost, I must make clear that, what I do, I do not only for Konoha, but for yourself and your family. You have your entire life ahead of you, and I have lived a full, rewarding existence. My choice has been made freely, and I am proud to give my life for this village. _

_ Kushina has agreed to accompany me on this final task. Do not fault her actions. She offered to take my place, although I have forbidden her to do so. My hands are no longer as steady as they once were, and she insisted on aiding me in the sealing. _

_ I have taken your array and modified it such that it acts from a distance. Everything will go as you planned; half the fox's chakra will be forced into the statue, and half I will take into myself as I go to the Shinigami. My only fear is that the fox's chakra will be too potent to be bound to simple stone. If this truly is the case, I have arranged for an orphan infant to be brought along, so that he may serve as the Kyuubi's jinchuuriki. I know this is a truly despicable action, even as a last resort, but if it is not done, the fox will destroy us all._

_ Take care of Kushina, and little Naruto, my friend. Treasure the time you have together. I leave the future of Konoha in your capable hands, and hope that one day, you may find it in yourself to forgive me._

_ Sincerely, Hiruzen Sarutobi_

"That bastard," the Yondaime said as he finished reading, and it was not clear if he referred to Danzo or the Sandaime. Carefully, almost reverently, he folded the letter with trembling hands and slid it back into the envelope. Then he placed it in the pocket stitched inside his cloak, the one that lay closest to his heart.

"Let's go," he said finally, turning to Naruto. "We have enough rope to hang the fucker."

* * *

**Notes**

First off: I would really like to thank everyone for the comments they left for the previous chapter. It made me get this one out faster. It also made my life suck less. You guys are great.

Second: I need a beta. I don't even want to think about how many errors are in this chapter.

I had mentioned, long ago, that I maybe wanted one, and then decided against it because, back then, I still had enough time to proofread my chapters. This is no longer the case. So it would be really, really cool if someone who (a) has a good grasp of the English language and (b) would be also willing to be a sounding board/censor for my retarded ideas PMed me, or dropped a note, if he or she is interested.


	10. Chapter 10

disclaimer: i don't own any of this

this has not been betaed; i will post the betaed version later. i thought, after such a long time, i didn't want you guys to have to wait any longer.

* * *

**The Chain of Change**

_Chapter Ten_

_

* * *

_

For once, none of Danzo's meticulous preparation and paranoia had been of any use. By the time he realized just how fucked he was, it was far, far too late to do anything about it.

One minute, he was in a meeting with a civilian aide (Shiwa Hiro, small, harmless, and completely lacking in anything that could even be considered an imagination) in a closed office of Hokage Tower, and the next thing he knew, someone had sent him flying back into the air with the punch to end all punches. Danzo's trajectory was interrupted by a bookshelf, which cracked, along with a few of his ribs, neatly in half. With his head still reeling, the veteran's first thought went to what Tsunade could have possibly dug up on him, but then he looked up realization set in along with a sort of cold, sinking feeling in his belly.

He hadn't been hit with a punch at all, but rather an airborne Rasengan. On the other side of the office, the Yondaime stood facing him, his long coat billowing slightly from the draft at the door. In his hand he held another fully-formed Rasengan, and he was idly tossing the tightly whirling ball of chakra in the air and catching it again as if it were a baseball. The jutsu seemed to falter a little in the air, the loops of chakra somehow rotating slower around its core, only to speed up again once it made contact with Minato's hand once more, but the blond didn't seem to notice. Instead, his attention was wholly fixed on Danzo; hunting sharks had expressions friendlier than the one the Yondaime currently wore. If looks could kill, then the elder would have been safely dead right there and then.

When Minato made no move to follow up on his first bone-breaking strike, the veteran pulled himself to his feet, careful to feign, even through the aching pain in his chest, the normal stiffness of motion one would expect from a crippled old man. Only then did he notice Naruto standing behind his father in the doorway. The younger Namikaze's expression was perfectly neutral, but his blue eyes were like cut glass as he regarded the elder.

A natural inclination for devious and years of experience had lent Danzo the ability to think quickly on his feet. Even now, his mind was rapidly working out worst-case scenarios and routes of escape as he bluffed, "Minato, what the hell are you trying to do? Do you think you can actually get away with striking an elder without provocation? Hokage or not, I'll make sure you face the full consequences of your actions!"

The Yondaime's expression twisted into a smile so wicked and out of character, the veteran momentarily lost track of his thought process upon seeing it. "Oh believe me, Danzo, you've provoked me quite thoroughly. But luckily for you, I'm going to hold back my current desire to pull your head through your asshole, and give you the chance to come clean."

Minato must have discovered the study and its cache of illegally-obtained documents. But the older blond was truly and deeply angry, angrier than the elder had ever seen him - something had infuriated him on a personal level. Which meant… Danzo's eyes flickered over to Naruto, and suddenly he knew how he was going to escape.

He clasped a hand to the side of his head and made a show of pretending to rub at a bruise there. He was, in fact, loosening the bandages that covered his right eye. Shisui's unique dojutsu didn't require eye contact, which meant that it could be activated even under the bandages swathing the right side of his face, but he needed the Sharingan's other advantages if it came to an actual fight against the Hokage. He continued the charade, buying time. "Have you gone insane? I have no idea what you're talking about."

"We found your secret clubhouse," Naruto said, confirming his suspicions.

Danzo turned to the younger blond, as if intending to finally reply, but instead channeled chakra into Shisui's eye and activated the dojutsu.

The transition was immediate, and at once Danzo could hear the steady sound of water dripping. His surroundings had turned dark and slightly damp, the air cold enough to cloud his breath into fog. The elder unconsciously curled his lips into a grimace of distaste as he looked around. He'd always known that the boy's mind was a sewer, but never had he suspected the comparison to be so literal.

Behind him, the tunnel ran on endlessly into pitch blackness, but when he faced forward he thought he could see a murky light in the distance. He walked towards it, his sandals sloshing in the inch or so of scummy water that flooded the ground. It seemed to grow colder still, and by the time he reached what lay at the end of the sewer, he was shivering violently.

An enormous grate stood before him, completely sectioning off the tunnel. It was made of some dark metal that glistened wetly in the darkness, probably covered by some kind of slime mold or mildew. Danzo thought he saw someone standing on the other side, half-shrouded by the gloom. He approached the grate for a closer look.

There was a flash of yellow, and the elder and was barely able to pull back in time to evade the hand that suddenly stretched through the grating, lightning-quick. Behind the barrier, Naruto's subconscious snarled in frustration. The boy's features were viciously feral as he regarded Danzo through the murky half-light with eyes the color of hot magma.

"Kyuubi, how good to see you," the veteran baited, trying to disguise how quickly his heart was suddenly beating, how much the sudden encounter had rattled him. "Everyone's been wondering where you've been, all these years."

The other's response was not at all what he expected.

"Kyuubi? You've got the wrong person, old man."

Danzo blinked, completely thrown. Then, reasoning that the demon must be lying (since it was, after all, a demon), he pulled off the bandages covering Shisui's eye and stared the other down with all of the Sharingan's whirling glory. Silently the elder reminded himself that he had the upper hand, had tortured and twisted his own body so he might one day gain control of the beast before him.

"Tell the truth, demon!"

The Naruto lookalike laughed derisively. For all effective purposes, it seemed that the technique had done nothing. "You're not too bright, are you?"

This time, Danzo was unable to mask his surprise. He backed away from the grate, feeling as if his stomach were sinking through his asshole. What the hell was going on? With Shisui's eye, he should be able to compel anyone who didn't possess the Sharingan, no questions asked. Add in the fact that this was one of the bijuu standing before him - his doujutsu should have complete control!

His companion must have noticed this consternation, for he let out another another bark of amusement. "Didn't you notice this thing?" he asked, bringing both hands up to grab hold of the grate, leaning back slightly even as he pulled himself toward it. "I don't get to rip your face off if you're standing on that side, so it's only fair that you can't mindfuck me while I'm over here."

"You are the Kyuubi no Kitsune," Danzo spat. "I possess both the Sharingan and the cells of the Shodaime Hokage. My mere presence should be enough to control you."

"For Kami's sake, are you retarded? I'm not the Kyuubi."

Danzo stared hard at the figure. "Then who are you?"

The blond grinned lazily, his teeth gleaming into sinister points in the dimness. "I'm what you get when part of a bijuu's fractured consciousness possesses an infant in a botched sealing. Which is also your fault, by the way." The grin widened further as he noticed the wheels starting to turn in the elder's head, and Not-Naruto tilted his head to one side, regarding his visitor with a gaze bright with alien intelligence. "I know what you're thinking, old man, and I'm telling you right now that you can forget it. There's only one way to restore me to Kyuubi status, and you don't have the power or the balls to do it. So let's just face it - you're fucked sideways. This little chat's going to end soon, and you've just lost the one trump card you had against the Yondaime."

The last of Danzo's composure was rapidly slipping away into the darkness of that sewer. Somehow, he found within himself the ability speak again, one more desperate try at winning over the inhuman creature that stood before him.

"Help me, and I will break you free of this prison. You must hate the man who is at least partially responsible for reducing you to this state! Help me, and we can take Namikaze Minato down together."

He was rewarded with a final burst of laughter, slithering through the air like dark velvet. "Fuck Danzo, even with that Sharingan you can't see what's right in front of you. This isn't a fucking prison. It's _my half of the sewer._ I'm Naruto's subconscious, you dumb shit! I'd strangle you myself right now, but unfortunately you seem to have entered our mind through the wrong side. So do me a favor - make like a tree, and get the fuck out of here."

* * *

Minato regarded Danzo with narrowed eyes as the man appeared to space out for the barest second. Ninja do not just lose track of what they are doing in the middle of a potentially lethal situation for no reason; the bastard was trying to pull something. Whatever it was, Minato had no intention of letting it continue.

So he propelled himself forward, a blur of motion too quick for the eye to follow, intending to deliver an incapacitating but not lethal strike. As much as he would like to dismember the man, Danzo was more useful to him alive. Maybe missing a few fingers… limbs… reproductive bits, perhaps - but functional enough to reveal the full depths of his treachery.

At the very last second, Danzo's visible eye snapped into focus, and he headed off Minato's strike with a block, shifting his weight back onto his left leg to absorb the force.

Swiftly, Danzo seized the bandages covering his face and pulled them away. Shusui's eye whirled balefully as he faced his opponent. If Minato was surprised by the unusual modification, he gave no outward sign of it. Instead, the older blond produced a handful of kunai and flipped them lazily about the room before vanishing from sight.

Less than a second later, the elder was doubled-over and clutching his sides, where the Yondaime had directed several sadistic hits, further traumatizing his broken ribs. But instead of following up, Minato reappeared across the room, studying his opponent with narrowed eyes.

"You're not defending yourself," he murmured. "Isn't this your chance? If you beat me now, Konoha is yours."

"We both know I don't stand a chance," the elder spat, barely able to stand. "You won't kill me. Not while I still have information that you need."

The Yondaime stared at him for a moment longer. Then his lips curved into a truly terrifying smile. "I'm so glad you believe that," he said. And, just like that, he was gone again. Almost instantaneously, Danzo went flying into a wall, impacting with a sickening crunch.

"Get up," Minato snarled, hanging back again to give his opponent room. "Fight me with everything you've got. Maybe you'll die. Maybe not. But continue on like this and I will kill you, here and now. Or," he continued, his voice soft even as his killing intent saturated the room, "Did Konoha do the unthinkable, and raise a coward?"

Danzo said nothing, but the words seemed to have an effect on him, and he levered himself to his feet. As he straightened, he freed his right arm from where it was hidden beneath his robe, revealing an enormous metal bracer, held together by a series of riveted cuffs. With slow, deliberate movements, he set about unlocking each cuff, until the entire thing came apart and clattered to the ground, carrying with it a swath of bandages.

The Yondaime sucked in a sharp breath as the grotesque sight of the elder's Sharingan-studded arm was revealed to him. "The Uchiha Massacre… Of course. Danzo. You utter bastard."

"I thought you discovered all there is to know about me," the elder replied impassively, raising his arm. "It's time that I rid Konoha of your weakness."

Minato's hands flashed through a complex sequence of hand seals. Their surroundings blurred and warped as the fabric of space itself was contorted, the wooden paneling and bookcases of the office giving way to grass and trees and a wide-open sky.

The jutsu had deposited them in the middle of the forest surrounding the village. They stood in a largish clearing, fenced in on all sides by enormous trees. At a closer glance, the bark of these trees were scarred and grooved and studded with three-pronged kunai. The weapons were even embedded in the ground at regular intervals. The seals attached to them were tattered and weather-worn, but the characters on them were intact and stood out starkly in the sunlight.

"This is…" Danzo said, his eyes widening in realization.

"The place where I perfected the Hiraishin no Jutsu," Minato confirmed. He tilted his head slightly to one side. "Interesting. Your injuries no longer seem to be bothering you."

Danzo answered by inhaling sharply, then abruptly spinning his body around, releasing an enormous scythe of wind. As the razor-edged attack reached his opponent, the Yondaime flickered out of existence, immediately making contact with the elder with a Rasengan. Danzo was smashed into the ground and Minato vanished just as an exploding tag went off, reappearing about thirty feet away. His left arm hung at his side, bleeding from where the elder's kunai had pierced it, even as he'd flashed away from the attached exploding tag in the nick of time. A second later, a blast of wind chakra cracked several indentations in the bark of the tree immediately behind where the blond had just been standing.

_My last blow should have killed him,_ Minato observed, even as Danzo rematerialized and began to channel wind chakra into another kunai. _That arm. One of the eyes is shut, and they were all open about a minute ago. If I remember correctly, the number of people involved in the Uchiha massacre with mature Sharingan… _

"Are you kidding me?" he said out loud, and suddenly he was wearing an uncharacteristically savage grin. For a moment, the resemblance between father and son was disturbingly apparent. "I get a whole nine minutes to beat the absolute shit out of you without having you die on me?" The Yondaime took a deep breath and tilted his head back to peer at the flawlessly blue sky. "This... is turning out to be a fantastic day."

* * *

Almost precisely ten minutes after they vanished, Minato and Danzo reappeared. Naruto was waiting for them, sitting in one of the office chairs that hadn't been smashed to bits by his father's initial assault and flipping through the pages of a familiar-looking orange book.

Danzo was sprawled on the ground. The breath rasped laboriously in his chest, and every single Sharingan on his unholy right arm was tightly shut. His face was lined with cuts and abrasions, and his real eye had been blackened and was beginning to puff up. Apparently surprised that the abuse had ended so abruptly, he lifted his head to look at his opponent.

Minato gazed back steadily. Blood dripped from his arm, but he was otherwise uninjured.

"Kill me," Danzo gasped out. "I've lost."

"Yes," the Yondaime agreed mercilessly. "You have."

To his surprise, a strangled, painful sound emitted from Danzo's direction, like a death rattle being continuously drawn from the throat of a corpse. It took a moment for him to realize that the elder was laughing.

"You think this is the end," Danzo managed to choke out, levering himself upright on one arm. "But I still have the upper hand. Do you think you've discovered how deep my roots truly run?" He turned his head toward Naruto, looking for all the world like some bedraggled, demented owl. "Once my allies find out what you've done… what do you think will happen then?"

Then he keeled forward and passed out.

"Well," Naruto muttered, eyeing the limp sack of flesh that now decorated the floor, "That was anticlimactic."

Minato gave his son a withering look. "You didn't fight him. He had a whole horde of tricks up his sleeve." He sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "We should get him to the Interrogation Force. They'll know what to do with him."

"The slimy bastard will try to escape the first chance he gets."

"Oh, he can try," Minato agreed. "But I think you forget exactly how good I am at sealing…"

* * *

All of a sudden, the light shining through his eyelids was too bright, and his mouth felt like someone had stuffed an entire hand towel inside it. Gaara let out a low groan and turned over. He felt his cheek rub up against coarse sand and breathed in deeply. It smelled hot and dry, and reminded him of Suna.

He thought he heard someone shout his name. It was very faint, as if coming from a great distance away, but it sounded kind of like Temari. "Gaara!" the voice repeated, and compelled him to attempt the Herculean task of opening his eyes, just a tiny crack.

The harsh sunlight that seeped through momentarily dazzled him, and he squeezed his eyelids shut again. His senses seemed to all swim together in one muddled conglomeration, and something other than the momentary discomfort of being alive nagged at him, something that swam just out of reach of his consciousness, like a half-forgotten dream…

Kakashi nearly had a heart attack as the Kazekage, who had been dead not less than five minutes ago, suddenly sprang awake and sat upright. Gaara's eyes snapped open and fixated immediately on Kakashi with disturbing intensity, their pupils so large they nearly swallowed up the entirety of the green irises.

"You!" he said. His voice was cracked and raw, but the words are clear. "Get back to Konoha!"

"Uh." How exactly did the chain of command work here?

"Konoha!" Gaara repeated. "You need to go back!"

The jounin fought the urge to back away. Apparently being brought back to life also induced temporary insanity. Who knew? "Kazekage-sama," he said, very slowly and placatingly, as if to a child throwing a tantrum. He threw several glances at Temari that practically screamed out loud for help, but the Sand-nin only glared back at him, her cheeks still stained with dried and drying tears. "You were just recently very badly injured and -"

"You were dead," Sasuke cut in bluntly. Kakashi felt some sort of tic begin to go off at the corner of his adopted eye, and fought down the urge to hit his student upside the head.

Instead, he continued lamely, "It may be better for you to rest for a while."

The Kazekage regarded him with a quizzical expression, as if not sure what to make of the jounin's strange behavior, before grating out, "I'm not crazy!" He somehow managed the feat of looking both peeved and exhausted at the same time. "Get back to Konoha. Naruto's in danger."

"Naruto?" Kakashi repeated, frowning behind his mask. "How do you know that?"

"Kyuubi. Kyuubi told me," the redhead said. Seeing the jounin's gobsmacked expression, he snarled, "Stop asking stupid questions and go!" before turning away in a clear indication of dismissal.

"Kakashi." Surprisingly, it was Sasuke, and his voice was both quiet and calm. "Let's go." Grudgingly, the jounin allowed himself to be led away, leaving Gaara alone with his siblings.

"Temari? Kankuro?" The redhead's voice was almost tentative.

"We're here, Gaara." His sister knelt down beside him, head bowed.

Kankuro mirrored the movement. "What do you need?"

For a moment, he was silent, staring down at the sand. Then he said, "Shukaku's gone."

"I'm alone."

* * *

Naruto had time to kill, and for once, he wasn't doing something self-destructive.

He was seated on top of one of the large, roundish stones that some overpaid landscapist had considered to be particularly aesthetically pleasing and therefore worthy of being a part of the Hokage's garden. From his perch, he could see the koi pond, where now and then a flash of orange or silver would disturb the reflection of a perfectly cloudless sky. A warm breeze picked up, and he let himself lean into it slightly. It was strange; he'd never really noticed how enjoyable good weather could be in the past, and how nice it was to just sit still and daydream. Maybe it was all of that senjutsu he'd been using lately. Or Shikamaru, rubbing off on him.

"What the hell," he said outloud, maybe to one of the koi swimming in oblivious circles below him. "Why am I so mellow all of a sudden?"

"Well," a voice answered, from somewhere behind him, "Maybe you've found peace of mind at last, kid."

"Jiraiya!" the blond exclaimed, flipping off the stone. "What're you doing back here?"

The Sanin stood at the gate, leaning casually against the tall doorjamb. He hadn't crossed the threshold, and thus hadn't triggered Minato's early-warning system.

"Hey," he protested, "Don't make me sound so unwanted."

Naruto snorted. "What are you just standing there for? Are you waiting for me to invite you in or something?"

It had been two years, but Jiraiya hadn't changed much since the last time Naruto had seen him. On closer inspection, however, there seemed to be additional lines creasing his eyes and the sides of his mouth, and his movements were slower, less fluid than before. For the first time, Naruto realized that the man, who had always been an energetic and supportive presence in his life, was growing old. It was a startling realization, and before he could help himself he blurted out, "Are you doing okay, old man?"

The Sanin gave him a curious look, his dark eyes piercing. "The hell's that supposed to mean? I'm not ready to croak yet, if that's what you're implying. Anyway, how are things?" He meant: _How are you and Minato?_

"Eh," Naruto replied. Then, more slowly, as if the words were reluctant to leave him, "Things have gotten better recently."

"Really?" Jiraiya's expression didn't change, but suddenly the intensity of his attention was focused on his godson. "How so?" He asked, almost cautiously.

The blond allowed himself a little smile as he said, "We might have gotten to the root of the problem. Anyway, you never answered me. What're you doing back here?"

The Sanin blinked at the sudden change in topic, but made no move to comment on it. "Not here. Let's go inside, and let's see if your father's got any of that fantastic Ginjo sake that Tsunade won last time she went out on a gambling spree. Kami, it's unnatural how lucky that woman is."

"Uh, Jiraiya, not that I'm complaining, but it's two in the afternoon," Naruto pointed out. "And, technically, I'm convalescing."

"That's fine," the Sanin said. "More for me. Say, you don't fancy a quick trip to the onsen while we're at it? For old times' sake?"

* * *

Five hours of eyeball-melting effort later, Minato actually had his work done in time to make it home for dinner. Not that, mind you, he had anything in, but it was a considerable improvement compared to the days when he'd stumble home at around eleven and make himself a pack of instant ramen before crawling into bed, only to get up at seven in the morning to repeat the process. Maybe it was time to give in and hire the assistant Kakashi'd been nagging him about for so long.

It was most certainly time to reevaluate his situation. He was Hokage, the leader of the village, but somehow he had lost control of his own life. Haunted by feelings of guilt, he'd played right into Danzo's hands, and as a result, he'd almost lost the most important thing in his world.

That could never happen again.

The sun was sinking low and heavy in the western sky as he returned to the Namikaze estate. Out of habit, he surveyed the grounds as he closed the gate behind him. His personal ANBU knew better than to follow him home and there was always the chakra warning system to inform him of intruders, but ninja thrived on paranoia. For a moment, the sunset stained the entire garden a deep and sinister red. All the plants appeared to burst into flame, and the koi pond seemed awash with blood.

Minato shook his head in disgust. The paranoia was certainly catching up with him.

He took off his sandals before stepping inside the house. "I'm home," he began to call out, then stopped as he caught strains of laughter coming from the kitchen.

His sensei and Naruto were seated at the kitchen table. Jiraiya was howling with mirth, and Naruto had a self-satisfied, lazy grin on his face; clearly, he was the one to tell the joke, whatever it was. Between them lay two empty bottles of sake, and the Sannin was currently doling out generous amounts from a third into two masu.

The room went completely silent as its occupants realized Minato's presence. Jiraiya stopped pouring so abruptly that the sake sloshed over the edge of the masu and onto the table.

"I thought," he hissed at Naruto, "you said he wasn't getting home til ten."

"He usually doesn't!" the younger blond shot back. "Don't start pinning this one on me."

Minato cleared his throat. "…Is that the sake Tsunade gave me?"

"Uh." Jiraiya said eloquently. "Yes?"

The Yondaime sighed, then crossed over to the table. He picked up the bottle and continued filling the masu. This done, he took the nearest one and raised it up to his former teacher.

"Kampai."

Jiraiya broke into a broad smile, and he lifted his own masu up in the air in acknowledgement. "Kampai," he replied, before drinking.

"So," Minato said, seating himself after he'd drained his portion. "What brings you back to Konoha, Jiraiya-sensei?"

"Why is that the first thing anyone asks me? You're just as bad as your kid."

"You've been away for so long, it seems like a valid question."

The Sannin pulled a face, then nudged at his godson. "You explain. I'm tired of repeating it."

"You only said it once!" Naruto protested, glowering back at him. Receiving no response, he sighed in disgust before giving in.

"Akatsuki," he said, helpfully.

"Ugh, can't depend on you to do anything right," the white-haired man muttered, interrupting. Then, turning to Minato, he said, "For two years, those bastards have been lying low. Only taking jobs as mercenaries - nothing ground-shattering. Now, it seems like the something's crawled up their collective asses. The entire organization's on the move. Word has it, they're collecting the bijuu, and they've succeeded in getting all but one."

"And no word on Gaara," Naruto cut in, slumping against his chair.

"That leaves the Kyuubi," Minato said quietly. "So they're headed here then?"

"It has to be their next move," Jiraiya said grimly. "I don't know when it'll happen. None of my contacts near Konoha have reported any signs of them. But I came here to warn you, so you can get that statue under guard. Whatever Akatsuki means to do with the bijuu, it will not end well. They must be stopped."

Minato looked over at his son. Naruto was staring at the window, out into the night. Doubtlessly, his mind was on his friend, all those miles away in Suna.

"Naruto." The Sannin put a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder. "Gaara's in good hands. And in this case, no news is good news. You have to stay optimistic."

"Yeah," Naruto agreed, but it was half-hearted at best.

There was a stretch of silence as the Yondaime considered what he would say next, and what impact it would have. He almost didn't say anything. But the words seemed to form on their own, unbidden.

"Jiraiya-sensei. The statue."

His teacher regarded him curiously. "What about it?"

"It's not the only thing we need to protect."

* * *

**Notes:**

Fuck, it has been a long time. All I can say is that I'm sorry, and that unfortunately, I'm still swamped at work. I'm also floored at the amount of encouraging reviews and messages. Thanks for sticking with me, guys. I'll try not to let you down too much with the next update.


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